


Visions in Red

by Swifters



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Danny Whump, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Steve Whump, Supernatural Elements, serious injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 69,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6306724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swifters/pseuds/Swifters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Danny plan some quality time to work on their 'issues'. What are the chances of that going smoothly? Whump and angst for all. A written-to-order gift fic for KQ, co-authored with praemonitus praemunitus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KomodoQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KomodoQueen/gifts).



> This fic is a gift from praemonitus praemunitus and myself for the amazing Komodo Queen, who presented us with a long list of demands. :) We've done our best to comply. The result is what you have before you.
> 
> Disclaimer: The 5-0 characters, sadly, do not belong to us, as much as we would have loved to adopt them. We are merely borrowing them to play a little and promise to return them in more or less mint condition. Please note, this story describes serious injury, has some pretty bad language and supernatural elements that both of us love so much.
> 
> Acknowledgments: As the story is a surprise for our usual medical beta, we adopted a new one for the occasion. Enter our tame Navy Medic, who has chosen to be known as Scablifter. Thank you, Scablifter. You are a truly disturbing individual and we love you (though not as much as we love KQ).

Chapter 1

_Alone.  He had been trapped alone in the darkness, wrenched from his family, as time stretched on into infinity. But now something had changed. He felt something new. The scent of fear and anger; hot and sour… but this time they weren’t his own._

_He finally dared to open his eyes._

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

Steve lay on his back, letting the warm, gentle waters of the Maunalua Bay hold him up as he rested after a fast-paced twenty-minute swim.  The morning sun beamed down on him, its warmth soothing, lulling almost, and he closed his eyes, relaxing into the serene idyll of nature.   He was alone out here.  Perfectly safe, perfectly at peace.  One on one with the elements that accepted him as their own.  It was a magical, heady feeling.  He felt like he could float here forever, weightless and free.  Like he could let go of all the pain and misery that hung around him like a heavy, oppressive cloak, weighing him down the moment he stepped foot onto steady ground.  Could let it all seep out of him – the heartache of loss and betrayal, the agony of wounds never healed, let it all soak into the endless swells and leave him light and carefree again.  

 

He couldn't stay long, he knew.  He was meeting Danny at 9.  Was gonna take him hiking to Pu'u Hapapa – a good four-hour hike that should treat them to some of Oahu's best views and a subsequent overnight campout at the base of the peak that would give him and Danny some much needed one-on-one time in a stress-free, relaxing environment.  It was something their therapist had told them they could benefit from, and, for once, they had both agreed.   With everything that had been going on in their lives lately, with all the strain their relationship had been under, with the constant threat of them going at each other like two vicious pit bulls at the slightest provocation, they needed something: a getaway, an escape into the bosom of nature for just the two of them.  A chance to reconnect, a chance to find each other again the way they used to be, the way they should be... as partners, as friends, as brothers.

 

He sighed heavily, thinking back to their latest spat.  Just a few days earlier.  A silly argument that morphed into a near screaming match, filled with scathing insults tailor-made for the chinks in their respective armor.  It was that same evening after their last squabble, once the tempers had died down, that Steve had knocked on Danny's office door with an apology and an offer to do as their therapist had suggested, to put aside a block of time just for _them_ and try to make things right.  Because this needed to stop.  Because he had grown tired and worn from the constant pressure that was building between them.  And because he had seen too many people disappear from his life, and he felt a nauseating, heart-squeezing terror at the mere thought that he might end up pushing Danny out as well. 

 

Danny had agreed to come, though, and Steve felt a renewed sense of hope that all was not yet lost between them.  And he had now a mission: he was gonna do his goddamn best to turn things around for him and Danny, to make this weekend memorable and meaningful for both of them.

 

Judging by the sun's position in the sky, the time was already approaching 8 o'clock and he still needed to take a shower and get ready.   Loath to let go of this intoxicating illusion of tranquility, he allowed himself a few more minutes of it before rolling over onto his stomach with a reluctant sigh. And then he started back toward the shore, his movements strong and measured, and he reveled in the feel of the waves rolling smoothly over his skin, as he glided through them, stroke after powerful stroke.

 

He toweled off haphazardly, water droplets still glistening on his bare shoulders as he made his way through the back of the house and up the stairs to his bathroom. 

 

Fifteen minutes later he was back downstairs, freshly showered and dressed for a hike, the backpack with all the necessary supplies standing on the living room table before him as he gave it a final check.  A sudden unfamiliar phone ring drew him up short, and he raised his head, frowning as he sought out the source of the sound.  And then he saw it: a simple disposable keypad cell phone lying on the small end table by his front door.  He stared at it for a long moment, his senses instantly on alert as he considered the implications behind the sudden appearance of this seemingly innocuous item.  Someone had been here, someone had gotten into his house while he was out.  Why?  Who?  Were they still here?

 

Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out the gun he had stashed in there in case of emergency and went to pick up the still ringing phone, his narrowed gaze scanning the visible areas of the house for anything suspicious. 

 

"McGarrett."

 

"You can put the gun down now, Commander."  The voice on the other end was young and unfamiliar, with a soft Irish lilt, but it was the words themselves that raised the hairs on the back of his neck and had him spinning around as if burned.  There was no one behind him that he could see, however, which could only mean...

 

"There's a hidden camera in your house, Commander," the voice sniggered haughtily, confirming his own train of thought.  "Please trust me when I say that I can see your every move.  And, please, do as I say.  Your friend's life depends on it." 

 

_Son of a..._   Steve felt anger uncoil deadly and snakelike inside him at the callous threat.  Gripping the phone tighter with his left hand, the knuckles of his right hand growing white with pressure as his fingers clenched harder around the handle of the gun, he gritted out a dangerously low, "Who are you?  What do you want?"

 

The answering chuckle made him wish the guy was within his arm's reach.  "My dad used to tell me that your nose flares when you get pissed off.  I can see now that he was right."

 

"Your dad?"

 

"Victor.  Victor Hesse.  I'm sure you remember him," the voice sounded affectedly pleasant now, mockingly so. 

 

Steve jolted despite himself, swallowing tightly against a rush of unpleasant memories brought on by the name he had hoped was buried along with its owner.  What was it with deranged psychopathic progenies coming out of the woodwork to extract their revenge on him?  First Wo Fat, now Hesse's son.  _Shit._ He ducked his head, hoping to hide his reaction.  An amused snigger on the other end of the line told him he didn't quite succeed.

 

"I see you do remember.  Good.  My name is Aiden, by the way.  I must say it's a pleasure to finally speak with you, Commander.  I've been looking forward to meeting my father's killer for some time now."

 

"Aiden," Steve took a deep breath, trying for calm, "I didn't kill your father.  A man named Wo Fat–"

 

"Semantics, Commander!" the voice cut him off, sharp and angry.  " _You_ are the one who chased my father around the world like an animal!  _You_ are the one who put him in jail!  He's dead because of _you_!"

 

A moment of silence followed, punctuated by heavy breathing as the man on the other end struggled for control.  "You're wasting time, Commander," came the eventual matter-of-fact declaration. "Time your friend, the Detective, does not have."

 

_Danny?_ The revelation was a blow to the gut, sharp and brutal. 

 

"Don't you dare hurt him," he growled out, his voice dangerously low, as he fought to regain his composure.

 

"Any _more_ , you mean?" 

 

The chuckled out response sent a rush of ice-cold fear down his spine.  "What did you do to him?"

 

"Nothing permanent.  Yet."

 

The underlying threat was brutally, unequivocally clear, as was his next course of action.  "What do I need to do?"

 

"Start by putting down that gun, like I told you earlier," the voice instructed, cool and professional once more.  "And take out your phone.  Place it on the table in front of you next to the gun."

 

Steve did as he was told, teeth gritted in helpless anger.  "Now what?"

 

"Now you drive to the coordinates that are being sent to your burner as we speak.  Alone.  You will get further instructions when you get there."

 

The phone beeped, announcing the incoming message, making him flinch. 

 

"See you in a bit, Commander," came the mocking farewell.  And Steve pressed the phone harder to his ear, his voice bordering on desperate as he bit out a hurried, "Wait! I need to know you have him.  I want proof of life."   

 

There was another chuckle, followed by a tauntingly cold, "Check your messages again, Commander.  You have your proof."  And then the connection clicked off.

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

Danny was alone, his rasping breaths, rapid and irregular, the only soundtrack to his torment.

 

He couldn’t move. Hands zip-tied behind his back, suffocating hood over his head, he was blind and helpless. His body shook with the strain of his one simple task- staying up on his knees, back ramrod straight. He had no choice. They’d put a noose round his neck, literally, the other end of the rope attached to some unseen thing right up above him. Every lapse, every instance when his trembling limbs gave out by the smallest amount, the rope tightened further, squeezing and choking.

 

The constriction would ease if he could stand. He’d tried, but he’d gone back down every time and every time he went back down he risked losing his balance, falling too far.  Being hung.  He’d had to give up, concentrate on staying on his knees at the end of that rope when all he wanted to do was lie down. He wanted to give in to the pain and thirst and exhaustion and let himself sleep. He knew he would pass out soon and, when that happened, the noose would tighten for good… and that would be it.

 

It should have been easy, staying up on his knees, but they had hit him _hard_ when they had finally succeeded in taking him down. They’d caught him unawares- he’d been asleep in his own bed, for goodness sake. God only knew how they had gotten in to his house without waking him and thank goodness no one else had been staying over. No Grace, no Melissa, no Eric to get caught up in it. Danny could never have forgiven himself if that had happened.

 

Danny had tried to fight them, he really had, but there had been four of them and they had been brutal. They’d done real damage- he knew he had cracked ribs and concussion at best- and the dizziness and nausea were unabating.

 

For all his situation was the bad end of shitty, the bigger picture was even worse because he knew what they wanted. They didn’t care about him, not at all. He was bait, pure and simple. Aiden Hesse had told him that in no uncertain terms (and, Jesus, wasn’t that a kick in the teeth- the team’s inaugural foe having a son as predictably evil as he had been. Danny couldn’t help but laugh when the little shit had introduced himself in appropriately over-dramatic fashion. That had earned him another punch to the stomach, of course, but come on!).  So yeah, Danny was irrelevant. It was _Steve_ they wanted.“Smile for your partner,” the little bastard had mocked as Danny had knelt there, half-smothered by the suffocating hood. The words were followed rapidly by the unmistakable fake ‘click’ of a cellphone camera.

 

If Danny was certain about one thing, it was that, no matter how tenuous their relationship might be right then, Steve _would_ come. Steve wouldn’t need to see his face to know it was him. Steve wouldn’t need to see his eyes to know he was hurt and scared as well as fucking pissed off. For all they bitched and fought like children when they were together, Danny knew without a shadow of a doubt that Steve would do literally _anything_ to get him back. Oh yeah, he would come.

 

Some selfish part of Danny was looking forward to it. He could fantasize that Steve would show up in all his ass-kicking SEAL glory, foil whatever devious plan the bad guys had in mind for him and shoot the bastards without a hair on his own head being harmed. He would cut Danny free then say just the right thing to piss him off, to banish the fear and make everything right with the world again. As right as it ever was, anyway.

 

But as much as Danny wanted to live he would rather die than see Steve give himself over to these people to save him, so he prayed that, just this once, his gung-ho partner would do the sensible thing. Get back-up. Surround the place. Keep himself safe and try to get Danny out the approved way- negotiation.

 

Danny snorted at himself because there was precisely zero chance of that, thanks to the stupid self-sacrificing ways of his idiot Neanderthal partner. His best friend, for all things seemed to have turned to shit between them lately. They could have sorted it out, he was sure they could. They had just needed a moment together to draw breath, a moment with no crazed criminals or plots or kidnappings or random hot blondes on planes to get in the way. Maybe. Or maybe their friendship had just run its course. Maybe there was too much between them now. Maybe they’d seen too much of each other’s weaknesses and now defensive jibes were all they had left.

After their latest spat, which had been over a _chair_ for God’s sake, Danny had had enough. In the heat of the moment he had been ready to go crawling back to HPD for an undoubtedly more peaceful existence. Seriously. _A chair_. Danny’s office chair had randomly broken, so Danny had done the sensible thing and filled out a requisition form for a new one, then stuck the piece of paper in Steve’s in-tray to be signed. But Steve couldn’t just sign it, oh no, he had to come tell Danny he’d picked the wrong chair from the freaking chair catalog, and when Danny had told him to just sign the damn paper, Steve had changed the order behind his back. The chair had shown up. It was _not_ the one Danny wanted. Steve had looked smug. That was it, that was all, that was the sum total of the catalyst for the fight… but it was the last straw and Danny had lost it, had yelled a bunch of stuff he might one day come to regret. But Jesus, the man didn’t even trust him to choose his own chair?! Come on!

Steve had stalked off, vibrating with fury. And Danny had actually been filling out transfer request forms when Steve had wandered back to Danny’s office half an hour later. He’d knocked softly on the door frame. Danny had braced himself for a continuation of the battle, but then he’d looked up, seen his partner’s face. He’d looked… worried? Sad, for sure, and Danny got that, because they had been through so much together, had been there for each other through everything. And now… it seemed like they could barely be civil. And that... That hurt.  A lot.  Both of them, if the expression on Steve's face was anything to go by.  So when Steve had come out with the suggestion they decompress, spend the weekend together, go for a hike, Danny had bitten back the sarcastic response about _taking_ a hike that was on the tip of his tongue. He’d agreed to it.

It was a simple equation really. Steve drove him crazy but Danny loved him anyway. Take away all the bullshit and the importance of the latter always outweighed the former. He’d let the bullshit take over in his marriage with Rachel instead of fighting for it… and he didn’t want to lose Steve like he’d lost her.

Danny should have said all of that at some point. Should have told Steve he didn’t hate him, that his admittedly bizarre take on friendship meant everything to him. And now he might never get the chance.

 

The realization hit Danny hard. A lump rose in his throat. He started to tremble.

He knelt there in utter misery clad only in the shorts he’d been sleeping in, stamina waning by the second. He swayed on his knees, fighting for breath, fighting panic because there was no _air_ and he couldn’t see and it felt like everything was closing in on him. He tried to distance himself from his physical pain and his mental anguish, but he was weakened and it was just so hard. He wobbled and gravity seemed to shift, to be pulling at him from the side. He was falling. He jerked, spread his knees wide in a desperate attempt to keep his balance, rasping for breath as the rope tightened yet further.

 

“No.” he murmured, desperate. He didn’t want to go like this, alone, unable to even try to help Steve, left here for his partner, his brother, to see before those bastards meted out whatever evil they had lined up for him. Danny screwed up his eyes, moaning in distress at the thought. The darkness around him became peppered with flashing lights, red and fiery, and he knew, _knew,_ he was going to pass out.

 

Then he heard something. A footstep, soft and light. A whisper of a breeze brushed past his sweat-soaked torso, raising goose-bumps in its path.

 

He sucked in his breath and tried to hold it, tried to listen, unsure if one of his captors was sneaking up to hurt him further, or if the movement was a figment of his imagination, conjured by his panic-stricken mind to make him think he might not be alone at all.

 

Nothing, he couldn’t hear a thing. He had to have imagined it. He was still alone.

 

He let his out his breath then gasped as his ribs screamed in protest. He couldn’t get enough air! His heart was just about pounding out of his chest, the ground pulling at him yet again. He spread his knees wider, choking as the rope tightened further still.

 

He didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

Steve sped along the Kamehameha Highway on his way to the North Shore, weaving in and out between cars, hands sweaty as he gripped the steering wheel hard enough to threaten its integrity.  His instructions specifically said not to attract attention: no lights, no siren.  They were watching him, too, he knew.  Another camera, similar to the one that had been placed inside his home, had also been placed on the dashboard, blatantly, in plain view, and Steve's hands were well and truly tied.  Hesse didn't say anything about speeding, however, so Steve kept his gas pedal flattened against the floor, because the damn place they were sending him to was on the other end of the island, and he needed to get there fast.  Danny needed him to get there fast.  Danny...

 

He choked on another wave of guilt-borne anguish as he thought back to the image of his partner that had been sent to him as the proof he had requested.  Bound, bloodied and half-naked, kneeling on the dirt floor in front of a cement wall that was covered with dirt and mildew stains.  But it was the sight of a noose tied around Danny's neck and a dirty hood covering his head that made Steve's blood boil, the knowledge that his severely claustrophobic partner was brutally tied up and kept forcibly in the dark.  That he'd plainly been beaten, badly, but he couldn't even lie down without being hung.  He needed to get Danny out of there fast.  And then, once he made sure his partner was safe, he'd work on reuniting Aiden with his deranged father. 

 

He swung sharply around a slow-moving pickup, narrowly missing an oncoming minivan that sent him off with a loud, persistent honk of indignation followed by a middle finger hastily stuck out from the driver's side window.  Steve ignored both, flooring the truck all the way to the Sunset Beach Elementary school parking lot – completely empty on a weekend morning.  He parked the Silverado in a spot closest to a small dirt path that led off into an adjacent copse, whose thick overgrown branches concealed it almost entirely. 

 

It was the beginning of the 'Ehukai Trail – a relatively new, unmarked path that led its infrequent travelers to some of the relics of Oahu's wartime past.  Bunkers, pillboxes, batteries – all rundown, faceless and long since abandoned – were buried deep within the dense, lush greenery that grew and sprawled, thick and unrestrained, advancing and taking over where man withdrew.  Steve guessed the moment he saw the school's address on the burner phone that Danny had most likely been taken to one of those long abandoned military installations along the trail.  Now he just needed those bastards to tell him which one.

 

The phone Hesse had left for him rang at that very moment, as if sensing the direction his thoughts were taking.  He took a second to draw in a calming, steadying breath before he picked up the device and hit 'answer'.  "I'm here," he confirmed, glaring at the innocent-looking camera before him.  _If looks could kill..._   "Where to now?" 

 

"You made very good time, Commander," Aiden's mocking brogue came over the line, making Steve's teeth itch.  "Now you're gonna go on a little hiking trip.  Follow the trail and keep walking till you reach a cave.  Turn north off the trail there and walk for another two miles until you see a concrete structure.  Your partner will be waiting for you inside." 

 

Steve closed his eyes briefly, trying to picture the trail in his head.  He had gone through parts of it once before with his father, many, many years ago.  Remembered the excitement, the thrill of coming up on these gray, windowless constructions with their chipped, discolored concrete sides and rusted metal doors.  He had felt awed then by the enormity of the find.  Smothered by the sheer weight of history that had settled on those timeworn fortifications.  It was probably one of the most memorable hikes from his childhood memory.  And he had begged and pleaded with his father to go there again, but John McGarrett couldn't quite find the time anymore.  And then Doris's double life exploded all over their little family, leaving nothing but pitiful, broken shards, and 'Ehukai Trail and the amazing secrets it held became a thing of a painful, carefully buried past. Steve had never gone back.

 

He took a deep breath, chasing the bitterness of those memories away.  Right now he needed to focus on Danny.  Only Danny, and nothing else.  "There are numerous bunkers in that section," he objected gruffly.  "How do I know I have the right one?"

 

"Trust me, Commander, you'll know it when you see it," came the mysterious, chuffed out assertion.  "Oh, and, Commander, make sure you leave the cellphone in the car before you go.  You won't be needing it any longer. And yes, it's cloned.  I’ll know if you try to use it to call for help."

 

The connection clicked off again, and Steve tossed the device onto the seat beside him, fighting the urge to smash the damn thing to bits.  It was useless anyway.  He couldn't use it to call his team, couldn't even make a simple emergency call.  Any outgoing call he made, Hesse would know about it, and Danny would pay the price.  Steve simply couldn't risk it. 

 

He wasn't completely helpless, however.  There was still the backpack that he had tossed into the bed of the truck before leaving the house. And there was water in there, and a flashlight, and some protein bars, and, most importantly, his SOG knife, stowed safely away in the inside pocket.  Hesse didn't say he couldn't bring the backpack with him, he had only mentioned the gun and the phone.  Steve wasn't about to question that little bit of accidental luck.   Taking another deep, steadying breath, he locked the truck, reached into the truck bed for the backpack, slipped it on and headed determinedly for the path.

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

It was another twenty minutes of trekking through slick, muddy trails, steep inclines and dense shrubbery before he stumbled out onto a small clearing where the lush forest green butted awkwardly against the drab cement gray of a manmade structure, creeping tirelessly alongside and on top of it as if attempting to swallow it whole but never quite managing to do so.  Breathing heavily after his punishing, fast-paced walk, he raised his right arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead as he squinted tiredly at the concrete block, wondering absently if he had the right place.

 

And then he caught a glimmer of shiny gold on the faded gray wall near the entrance, and his arm froze halfway to its goal.   A police badge.  _Danny's._   Screwed securely to the rough cement, the hole that had been drilled through the metal all but obliterating the '6' in Danny's badge number.

 

A quick but thorough scan of the surrounding area to ensure nobody was hiding near the entrance, waiting to take him out, and he was moving before he even realized it, a trembling hand reaching out with reverent urgency for the oval-shaped object and yanking forcefully at it.  There was an audible crack, and Steve gasped as the treasured shield broke in half, the mangled pieces slipping out of his hand.  For a brief moment all he could do was stare numbly at the mess he had created, unable to shake a sudden feeling of foreboding that had coiled snakelike around his heart.  He shook the feeling off, angrily almost, and bent down to pick up the broken pieces, placed them carefully into the side pocket of his cargos. 

 

And then he hesitated. Hesse plainly wanted him to go right on in to the structure. Danny was inside if Hesse had been telling the truth. It was a trap, he knew that. Still, what choice did he have? He was being watched, he knew that, too, without a doubt… And Danny’s life hung in the balance.

He turned slowly, taking in the dense rainforest surrounding the structure. Shadowed, impenetrable for his searching gaze.It could be hiding a myriad of things. He opened his mouth, sucked in a good lungful of the dizzyingly fresh air. “HESSE?” he yelled. “I’M HERE.”

There was no answer save for the startled flapping of panicked birds in the surrounding forest canopy. His mouth set into a narrow line. It was his move… and there was only one he could make. He stepped forwards and pulled the rusted metal door open with a sharp, scraping jerk.

 

The smell hit him the moment he stepped inside – the dank, musty stench of an airless room that had barely seen any human presence for the best part of a century.  It was strong and stale enough to choke his breath away.  He coughed dryly, his urgency to get Danny out of this putrid place rising with every passing second.

 

There was a set of crumbling stairs before him, leading down into a narrow hallway that dead-ended in another door.  There was no lighting source there that he could see, the steps growing darker as they moved further away from the open outside door.  Quickly, Steve slid his backpack off onto one shoulder strap, giving him easy access to one of the numerous side pockets, and pulled out a flashlight.  Training the beam of light onto the cracked steps before him, he began his rapid but cautious descent, his left hand holding on to the strap that remained on his shoulder to help keep the backpack in place. 

 

A sudden rush of cold air blew past him, making him shiver, and his flashlight flickered unsteadily as if the battery he knew to be full was suddenly close to drained.  He paused mid-stairs, hitting the butt of the flashlight to get it working again.  Seconds later the flashlight flared to life again, but Steve was left with a cold, disquieting feeling that settled deep in his chest, a presentiment of danger – grave and imminent, a strong urge to turn around and run in the other direction.  He shook it off, rolling his shoulders against the sinister chill that continued to linger around him even as he slid the rest of the way down the stairs and pulled open the second door. 

 

He found himself walking into a windowless room, measuring maybe 15 feet by 30 feet.  The damp, peeling walls rose up to a dome-shaped ceiling that anchored a row of industrial-size lamps.  Only one of the lamps at the far end was working, emitting a harsh, flickering light that bore down on a bound, hooded figure, kneeling by the far wall.

 

"Danny!"

It took a fraction of a second for Steve to catalogue everything about his bound partner.  The bruises and dried blood that covered his bare torso, the way he trembled from the tomb-like cold even as the sweat ran down his body. And that fucking rope around his neck. It was looped over a hook high above his friend, the end tied off on a metal ring on the far wall. If Danny had been standing it would have been loose, but he wasn’t. Weak and beaten, Danny was swaying on braced knees as if he were about to fall. The rope was taut and it was strangling him. Steve could hear his desperate, choked off breaths. _Shit._

 

But for all his dire predicament, Danny must have clocked his presence, must have heard him shouting outside. "Steve?" The word was painful to hear, grated out as it was from his friend's constricted throat. “Do-don't... T-trap.”

 

Steve bit his lip.  Hard.  The metallic tang of blood filling his mouth as he struggled to keep it together.  Of course it was, of course it was a fucking trap, but Danny was being _hung_ right there in front of him and what the hell choice did he have.  "I know," he ground out, fighting to get the words out past the billow of rage that closed up his throat.  "And I ain't leaving, so stow it. I’m coming over there. Just hang on, buddy."

He made himself focus once again on his task, as he raised his flashlight, sweeping its light carefully but swiftly over the mildew-covered walls and the dirt-littered floor, looking for any hidden presence, any trip wires, any dangers that could lie between him and his partner.  He saw none. 

“No," Danny wheezed out, suddenly panicked.  "Y-you have to... Please go.” But then there were no more words, just a desperate, gurgling noise as Danny tried to breathe and Steve’s option of a cautious approach was gone. He shoved the flashlight into his pocket, reached for his backpack again to pull out the knife and hurried forward, his only goal – to get to his brother's side as quickly as possible, to cut him loose, to get him out of here and get him help.

_Bastards.  Dead bastards.  Dead.  Every single one of them,_ he vowed silently as he moved, a rush of murderous anger mixing in with a hot wave of self-blame that churned his stomach.  All Steve wanted to do was find Aiden Hesse and rip the motherfucker's guts out with his bare hands.

 

He managed only about five steps in Danny's direction before the floor beneath him gave way entirely.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N WARNING- Serious and somewhat gory injury coming. The nature of the whump is brought to you with the seal of approval of the medical beta/disturbingly bloodthirsty enabler - Scablifter (look at us, passing the blame already). And hey, we can blame KQ too- serious injury was on her list of demands (tick). Mwah hahaha. 
> 
> Love Swifters and pp   
> xxx

 

Chapter 3

 

Danny fought desperately for consciousness, gulping for air past the merciless, choking pressure of the noose. Between the strangling constriction round his neck and the thick black hood he was trapped in some sort of surreal nightmare, some twisted version of a claustrophobic’s hell.

 

He was struggling for oxygen so badly that lights began flashing in front of his eyes. He knew the end was coming, he was going to suffocate right where he was.And worse yet, he was still aware enough to know Hesse’s trap, whatever it had been, had sprung on his partner. He had let him down, helpless to warn Steve adequately even if he had in fact known what the fuck Hesse had planned. He’d been helpless to do anything but listen in horror and try to breathe.

 

_Something_ had happened to Steve. Something really, really bad. The silence that had followed the sickening crack of splintering wood and Steve’s startled yelp, cut short with an almighty thud, was deafening.

 

Danny choked again and the flashing lights dulled as his awareness threatened to fade. His legs began to sag.

 

The sound of heavy feet descending concrete steps began to echo around him, louder and louder. Hesse and his entourage were returning. With a last burst of strength, he raised himself by a bare inch, determined to fight the darkness to the very last. The footsteps ground to a halt a short distance away from him and he strained his hearing, trying to discern words over the thunderous roar of blood pounding in his ears.

 

“You down there, McGarrett?” Hesse. It was the evil bastard himself. There was a pause, then a ripple of laughter that made Danny’s stomach clench. “Oooh, fuck, that’s gotta smart.”

 

No, no, no. Steve was hurt. The confirmation of what Danny had already known, based purely on the resounding silence from his partner, still filled him with sick horror.

 

The footsteps started again then, came towards Danny. He tensed, not knowing what to expect, but somehow the hard kick to his gut still took him unawares. He doubled over, stopped short by the noose which finally tightened all the way.There was a moment of sheer, unadulterated panic, of no air whatsoever, of the roar of blood reaching a deafening crescendo in his ears as his heart battled to keep life's fluid flowing to his brain… then just as suddenly the pressure was gone. They had cut the rope. A flood of oxygen and bright artificial light against his tightly closed eyes followed as the hood was finally, finally ripped off.

 

Danny lay there, just trying to breathe, the callous laughter of the men echoing around his head. He hauled air into his deprived lungs, his cracked ribs and swollen neck screaming in protest.  He blinked frantically, tried to make sense of what he could see through his horribly distorted vision. There was a light above him, blurred shapes nearby.

Slowly, slowly things came more into focus and he took in the outlines of the faces clustered over him. He dismissed them, looking beyond them, looking for _Steve._ His brain threw disjointed facts at him as his gaze flicked around. Concrete bunker, underground, stairs going up… and, between him and those stairs, something different, something that didn’t belong… a gaping void, splintered wood around it. _What the hell??!_

 

His jaw dropped in realization. And that was just typical, because, naturally, it wasn’t enough for the psychopath that had them to just catch them and put a bullet in their heads. Aiden Hesse had set an actual trap, a freaking actual physical trap. Of course Hesse senior had had a flair for the theatrics too, so it only made sense his son would be just as ridiculous. If not more. He’d dug a fucking _pit_ , narrow and running nearly wall to wall. There was no _way_ Steve could have avoided standing on it, not unless he had walked right round the very edge of the room. It had no doubt been covered over so he couldn’t see it. Steve had fallen in.

 

And now Danny knew what had happened, he knew what they’d done. He knew where Steve was, knew he was hurt and unwilling or unable to talk… but he didn’t know how badly he was injured. He didn’t even know if he was alive.

 

He was vaguely aware of Hesse droning on at him, mocking and teasing, but he wasn’t taking in the words. The hood was gone and the noose was gone.  Now, for all everything hurt like hell and he couldn't see straight, he could _breathe_ and he could think.  Now, he might still be weak and beaten, but he felt like a cop again and his mind fixed on _escape_ and _Steve Steve Steve_.

 

“Get him out of there!” Danny managed to rasp out past his swollen throat, his voice shaking a lot more than he had hoped.

 

Hesse laughed, _of course_ he laughed. "And stop all the fun?  Come on, Detective, if you've lured a dangerous animal into a trap, you don't just let it out.  You wait until the bloody thing croaks."

 

Danny stared up at him, suddenly finding himself shaking with anger. He dug the fingers of his bound hands into the flesh of his palms as he fought desperately for control.  "He's not a goddamn _animal_ , Hesse.  Get him out!"

 

"No?" The man raised an eyebrow, looking decidedly amused by Danny's reaction.  "Your buddy there chased my father around like a goddamn animal.  Locked him in that shitthole of a prison.  I thought it was only fair for him to spend his last moments in a fucking hole too." 

 

Danny choked on a wave of rage-tinted nausea. “Your father was a murdering bastard and he went to jail. That’s called justice! What- whatever the hell you’re doing here… you’re insane!”

 

“Maybe. What can I say? I just wanted your friend to suffer. And I’ll tell you what- I’ve got my wish.” Hesse smiled a wolfish smile.  "And, really, Detective, how do you expect me to just abandon all the effort, all the hard work that went into this?  I mean, look at the trap, Detective, _look_ at it!" 

 

Hesse snapped his fingers, and Danny found himself dragged unceremoniously forward and dropped back on his knees at the very edge of the pit.   He stared down into it, his horror-numbed mind sputtering over the terrifying jumble of images: a deep wide hole, a row of narrow, wooden spikes lining its bottom, spaced a couple of feet apart, a flash of familiar clothing, stained with a sickeningly bright shade of red...

 

Struck dumb with shock, Danny shook his head in denial at what he was seeing. “S-Steve?” He breathed out the word, bleary eyes fixed on his partner, trying to make out something, _anything_ , that might tell him Steve was still alive. But his already blurred vision was now further challenged by the sudden welling of furious tears. He couldn’t tell… but the body far below him was so, so still.

 

"Ingenious, isn't it?  Having my father's killer skewered on a spike like the bloody pig that he is?" Hesse sniggered, baring his teeth in an angry, predatory smirk.

 

It was just too much, the whole thing was too much. Grief and fury surged forth. Danny snapped.

 

“I’m gonna kill you!” he rasped, growling with aggression. He started to push himself up, he got his feet under him, his plan nothing more than _throwing_ himself at them. His weakened body foiling his efforts, he went at once back down to his knees but pushed himself up once more, spurred on to greater fury by their jeering. They weren’t even trying to stop him, they just fucking laughed.

 

He stood, swaying, shaking legs braced apart, and tried to focus on his persecutors, tried to focus on Hesse.

 

And there he was. He was easy to pick out, because he looked just like a younger version of his miserable excuse for a father, and Danny felt all the hatred he’d had for Victor rise up and join what he now felt for his son. He launched himself at the man.

 

He didn’t make contact. A large wall of muscle inserted itself between himself and his target before that could happen, but he ducked down his head, drove it into the gut of the hapless henchman that had appeared in front of him. He gloated silently in victory as the man went down, even though it had taken every ounce of strength he had mustered and landed him back on his knees, entirely spent.

 

And then everything happened very, very fast, too fast for Danny to process properly. Angry words barked out by Hesse, a boot to the stomach, another to the face. He tried to curl in a ball but he couldn’t protect himself properly, not with his hands tied behind his back, and the blows kept coming until everything became very, very vague. He felt like he was floating, colors moving past his face. The grey of concrete, the brown of dirt, the white of mocking smiles.  Hands grabbing at him, dragging him. Letting him go. Falling. He was falling. All he could see was darkness, endless nebulous black… then all-encompassing red.

 

A sharp jab in the back, then an untidy impact, jarring and rolling.

 

Oblivion.

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

Steve didn't understand what had happened to him.  Not right away.  He knew he had fallen.  Knew it was bad, judging from the nauseatingly strong, pulsating pain that originated somewhere in his abdomen and spread out like flashover through his entire body with each labored breath he took.  And he was uncomfortable.  Extremely so.  Lying on his back at a slightly upward angle, his shoulders digging hard into the lumpy ground underneath him, his feet resting awkwardly against something higher than the rest of him, something that prevented them from dropping all the way down.  

 

He shifted, trying to get a better look, and froze with a breathless gasp as the pain he had felt earlier morphed into an instant raging firestorm that blazed instantly through every nerve ending, searing away every thought, every sensation – everything but the roaring, red-hot inferno of pain.

 

He must have passed out.  He had to have, because his eyes were somehow closed and he didn't remember closing them.  The pain was also not so bad anymore, probably because he hadn't been moving for a while.  The sensible part of his brain told him he should keep it that way.  The other part, the one that always balked at inaction and raised Danny's blood pressure to dangerous levels (according to his partner, at least), told the sensible one to shove it. 

 

_Danny._ Memory struck him like a lightning bolt and he tried to call out his partner’s name. His lips moved, but no sound came out. He frowned, swallowed, went to try again, managing to produce nothing more than a faint hiss.  What the fuck was wrong with him anyway?  He thought back to what he had glimpsed in the millisecond before his consciousness whited out on him: his feet resting a few inches off the ground, propped on the wooden planks lining the sides of the hole he'd fallen into, and another thing – much closer toward him and much more disturbing – a sharp wooden shaft, slick with his own blood, sticking out from his very own belly like a grotesque imitation of a bad slasher film. 

 

He was stuck then, well and truly.  Well, _shit_.  He swallowed tightly against a wave of nausea that roiled through him at the memory of his grisly discovery.  _Focus,_ he chided himself, _focus!_ He _had_ to try to help Danny, he still needed to figure out some way to get out of this.  He had to.  There was simply no other choice.

 

He suddenly became aware of the drone of voices above him, and he peeled his eyes open, struggling to focus his swimming gaze on the blurry shapes before him.  It took a while before the haze dissipated enough that he could actually see, and when it did, he frowned in confusion at a row of evenly spread out wooden stakes that filled his tunneling vision.  There were at least four more that he could see, lining the bottom of the pit he was lying in almost all the way to where he had last seen Danny, if his calculations were correct.  _Did Hesse do all that?_ he wondered idly, blinking bewilderedly at the deadly display.  _Just to get to me?_

The answer came in the affirmative a mere second later, as the voices drew closer and he recognized the one that had spoken to him over the phone. 

 

_Hesse._

He shifted, rolling his head carefully to stare up at the edge of the pit, trying to suppress the panic that rose at the thought of lying here so completely exposed and helpless in the face of a deadly enemy who was so clearly deranged.  The movement, slight as it was, still sent a spike of pain through his overloaded synapses, and his awareness flickered out momentarily, the roar of blood in his ears blocking all other sound.  He breathed through it, sucking in short, spasmodic gasps.

 

His partner's voice filtered down to him, scared and then, inexplicably, angry.  It tugged urgently at his wavering consciousness, pulled him out of the encroaching darkness, pulled him back.  It filled him with relief despite the situation, because Danny was talking, breathing, Danny was _alive_.  He squinted up again, straining to see what was going on.  Whatever it was, it wasn't good.  Something had happened.  Something bad.  He could hear the aggression in the raised voices above him, the sounds of a struggle, of flesh hitting flesh.  _Danny._ It had to be Danny having yet more abuse meted out to him, and Steve ached with the need to aid his friend.

 

And then he saw it – a blur of a shape that appeared suddenly over the edge of the pit and began to tumble gracelessly down toward him, toward the neighboring spike.  He knew who it was even before recognition fully set in.  And he moved before that damn sensible part of his brain even had a chance to squeak.  Lifting his legs from their awkward resting place, he kicked out with everything he had, booted feet connecting with his partner's body in an effort to propel him away from the deadly points of the spikes beside him towards the relative safety of the plank-lined wall. 

 

He didn't get the opportunity to see if he succeeded.  Breathtakingly vicious, unadulterated agony ripped through him as a result of his desperate attempt to save Danny from being impaled beside him, and he was out cold even before his feet hit the ground.

 

TBC

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KQ demands tick-list: Dig or other historic setting (tick). Hole (tick). Serious injury (tick). The added gore of spikes was all PP's sick imagination :)
> 
> Everyone else- thank you for reading. Please review- feedback means everything to us.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Happy Easter KQ and all the Steve and Danny whump lovers out there! :)
> 
> A/N2 Warning- serious injury. Some gore.

 

**Chapter 4**

 

Impenetrable darkness, dirt stained crimson, mocking faces, a sharp stab of loss and _no air_. A boy, so lonely and sad, flame-red hair filthy and disheveled. The strange child reached out towards him, a plea for help in his wide blue eyes. Instinctively, Danny tried to put his arms out to the small figure, tried to offer him comfort, but he couldn’t move and he didn’t know why. He started to panic, tried to shout but then the boy’s face was changing, morphing into something new and familiar and _angry._ Steve, his partner, yelling, screaming and furious, but Danny couldn’t hear the words. He tried to say his name, tried to ask him what was wrong, but nothing came out. Then, suddenly, Steve’s expression changed. Fury became fear. Agony. He was in pain! And Danny? Danny still couldn’t move, couldn't do anything, couldn’t _help_ him.  His vision began to fill with the viscous red of blood. It seemed to pour in from every corner until he could see nothing else, until he couldn’t see Steve at all.He struggled, fought against the confines of his own body, terrified now, _desperate_.

 

He jerked awake, breathing hard.

 

Dreaming. He’d been dreaming! 

 

He lay there, curled on his side, trying to get himself back under control, blinking hard because he could still see nothing. Nighttime. It had to be the middle of a dark, dark, night, that was all. He was safe in his bed. Everything was fine. He just needed to calm the fuck down and he’d be able to move again.

 

But his heart was hammering in his chest and his blood was pounding in his ears… something was off, something was very, very wrong. The air around him was stale and thin and _Jesus_ he felt dizzy and sick. His head ached horribly, his ribs, his whole body in fact.  He had no idea why. His throat felt raw and it was so hard to draw breath, it felt like something was blocking his windpipe. He tried to bring his hand to his neck but his hands wouldn’t move.  Realization hit him.  His wrists were tied behind his back and that was never, ever a good thing.  He gasped, trying to understand, trying to remember, trying not to freak out because he couldn’t see a single thing in the velvety blackness surrounding him.

 

“Danny?”

 

The word came from just behind him. It was barely audible, the weak voice hardly recognizable as his partner’s. Danny frowned, utterly confused, struggling to take things in. He was missing something vital, he knew it, but his mind just wasn’t co-operating. They were clearly in trouble, clearly some bad guy had caught them… but at least they were together. At least Steve was there to superSEAL them out of whatever that trouble might be, no doubt poised to save the day in that infuriating way of his. Poised to blow stuff up, shoot people, punch faces and drag Danny along for the ride whether he wanted to come or not.

 

Danny felt himself relax minutely because Steve had his back. He lay still for a moment, waiting for Steve to tell him his Grand (and undoubtedly insane) Plan, or cut Danny free, or _something._

Nothing. No movement.

 

Danny cleared his throat. “Steve? Little help here, buddy?” His voice grated painfully against the impasse in his throat and he cringed at both the sensation and the weak, wavering tone.

 

Silence.

 

A bad, bad feeling started to build in the pit of Danny’s stomach.

 

“Steve?”

 

A moan, then, “Kn-nife... Dropped it. It’s... n-near you.”

 

“O-okay.” Danny exhaled in relief.  So that was the reason for the delay. Steve was looking for his knife. Okay. That was… okay. Danny blinked a couple of times, peering into the darkness, trying to make out something, _anything._ He was trying to stay calm, he really was. Didn’t want sarcastic offers of hand-holding over his claustrophobia issues. Slow, even, deliberate breaths. In. Out. In. Out.  Not too deep, easy on the ribs.

 

A sudden rattling noise from above made him start. He listened. Wood creaking, soil dropping. That was what it sounded like, anyway. He didn’t know what it meant but it really wasn’t helping his state of mind. He had the sudden, overwhelming feeling of being buried alive and he squeezed his eyes tight shut.

 

He consciously switched his focus away from whatever the hell was going on above them back towards his partner, trying to listen for Steve's movements, to picture him coming closer, coming to cut him loose. But there was nothing, no movement anywhere near him, no sound.  His heart dropped. Steve wasn’t doing anything at all. The bad, bad feeling grew.

 

“Steve?" he rasped, "Anytime now would be good. It’s freaking dark and I’m really trying to keep it together but I’d really, _really_ like to get the hell outta here, know what I mean?” He was rambling, he knew, and he didn’t even try to keep the anxiety out of his voice. There was no point pretending. Steve knew him too well.

 

Nothing.

 

Danny’s stomach clenched. “Steve?”

 

This time he heard a ragged intake of breath. Shit.

 

“Steve? You hurt?” 

 

“L-little bit.” Steve’s voice sounded strained, tight, like he was trying not to move, like he’d broken something or…

 

Everything came back to Danny in a rush. Hesse, the hood, the noose, no air… Steve and the pit and the _stakes_. “ _Shit!_ Steve! _Steve_!” he choked out, scrabbling with his legs, trying frantically to get up onto his knees. He kicked out, struck something hard in front of him and the creaking noise started anew. A shower of soil fell down, landing in his eyes, his mouth. “Fuck!” he gasped, shaking his head, spitting.

 

“Danny.” There was an edge of something in Steve’s voice. The word was quiet and plainly pushed through gritted teeth, but it came out like a command and Danny stilled, breathing hard.

 

“D-danny. Find. The. Kn-nife.”

 

Danny had to take a few more breaths, had to try to get a hold of himself. The situation was shitty and terrifying and overwhelming, but Danny was a cop. A hard, experienced cop, well used to keeping his head in the face of danger. Just because this was an entire freaking anthology of his worst fears piled one on top of another like some fucked up version of a stacking toy, just because he was dizzy and nauseous and dehydrated and hurting like hell, didn’t mean he couldn’t act like the man he was.

 

A few more breaths to focus and things became a little clearer, if no less daunting. Yeah. Okay. They were in a pit. Steve was hurt, most likely worse than he was. He knew what he had to do. Find the knife. Free himself, check Steve out, escape, get help.Easy. No problem. Danny sat firmly on the hysterical laugh that threatened to leak out.

 

Step 1… and he fumbled for the knife with his bound hands, numb fingers stubbornly refusing to communicate useful information to him to the point where a frustrated whine slipped out. But then the reassuringly solid shape was there, cold and hard in his hand. He turned it and began sawing clumsily at the plastic strip that held him, blanking the pain as he sliced his own wrists in the process. It gave.

 

_Free_ , he was free, and he wasted no time measuring the discomfort in his wrists, but immediately pushed himself up onto his hands and knees on limbs that felt like jelly. The dark space around him spun wildly and he paused, perilously close to passing out again, or throwing up, or both. But the unsettling noise of the trickling dirt and the need to get to Steve were powerful motivators.He pushed through it and began to feel his way in the direction he had heard Steve’s voice coming from. He found a foot, grabbed onto it. “Steve?”

 

Another ragged breath, then the tight, carefully controlled voice was back. “F-flashlight... Right pocket.”

 

“K. Okay.” Light sounded helluva good and Danny obediently felt his way up Steve’s leg until he reached his cargo pant pocket, flicked the button open and felt inside. His hands shook as he grasped the flashlight, switched it on.

 

He resisted the temptation to take in their surroundings first to put off the inevitable horror of seeing his partner’s injuries. He cast the beam along Steve’s legs, past his belt. And, oh fuck. Fuck, he could have curled up and cried when he saw it: the stake his best friend was impaled on, the gore-soaked end sticking clear up through his abdomen. He could have screamed and puked and howled in fear and fury all at once. He didn’t. He dug deep, forcibly suppressed his reaction, then he grabbed Steve’s hand and squeezed it.   _Hard_.  Rule 101: stay positive with casualties. Don’t let on when you think they’re screwed. But _fuck._

 

"Hey, buddy," he managed hoarsely, fighting like hell to keep the traitorous tremble out of his voice. 

 

Steve blinked lazily up at him, mustering something resembling a one-sided smile.  "Imp-pressive... huh?"  There was an attempt at levity in Steve's voice, diluted almost to naught by the unmistakable strain of pain.

 

Danny didn't respond, swallowing spasmodically as he fought to push back a swell of renewed nausea at the gruesome sight, to get his erratically racing heartbeat back under control.  Some of what he was feeling must have shown on his face, however, because Steve spoke up again, his voice soft and soothing, despite being broken by short, distressed-sounding gasps.

 

"It's al-right... Danny... I–"

 

Danny swung the flashlight up toward Steve's face, getting his first clear glimpse of the ashen-gray complexion, slick with a fine sheen of sweat and tightening periodically with ripples of unimaginable pain. 

 

"You better not be thinking about following that up with an 'am fine', Steven," he croaked out, following up the threat with an attempt at a growl of mock annoyance – a weak attempt, to be sure – to disguise the waver in his voice, "or so help me God..."

 

Steve huffed faintly at that, the pale lips pulling into a tired little smile.  "Was gonna go with... 'had worse'," he managed breezily before his eyes slid closed with exhaustion, his features going slack.

 

"Steve!" Danny called out, panic once again slipping into his voice as he leaned yet closer to his partner, free hand cupping the clammy cheek.   "Can you hear me?  Steve?!"

 

The long dark lashes fluttered, rising with almost painful sluggishness up off the near-spectrally white skin.  "Im-paled, Danny... not deaf..." And there was a flicker of fond annoyance in the pained blue eyes that met his.

 

Danny sagged back on his heels, relieved and grateful beyond measure for the soothing familiarity of Steve's snark. 

 

“We’ve got this. I’ll get you out of this.” Danny tried to sound convincing, reassuring, but both his voice and the hand he had laid against Steve's sweat-stained cheek were too damn unsteady to pull it off.

 

The smile grew a little wider, a little more rueful. “This you bein’ positive?”

 

Danny laughed a nervous laugh, tightened his grip on Steve’s hand. “Hey, take it when you can get it, partner. Okay, let me take a look at you, okay?”

 

Steve didn’t seem to hear him. “Y’okay?” he mumbled, his half-lidded eyes raking over Danny's bruised and swollen features, his marred torso, thorough, assessing.

 

“Shut up, huh?” Danny hissed, because he was so far from okay in so many ways it wasn’t even funny… but even acknowledging that was pointless, there was no time for that.  Steve was horribly injured.Whether they got out of this or not was entirely down to Danny. He could allow himself the luxury of acknowledging his own pain when Steve was safe. 

Studiously avoiding his partner's heavy, questioning gaze, Danny started to check Steve over, flashlight gripped between his teeth.  He could assess a casualty blindfold - basic cop first aid and years of front-line street experience saw to that. He started with the obvious injury and fuck, just _fuck_. Gentle fingers reached around to find the entry wound, well below the ribs, just to the side of the backbone (and thank God it missed that at least). There was blood. He could feel the spike and it was slick with it. But it wasn’t pumping out or gushing. Just oozing. The exit wound, tip of the spike sticking clear through Steve’s gut by a good couple of inches, revealed the same. _Lucky._ The word was on the tip of Danny’s lips and he bit it back, fought the hysterical laughter because this was in a whole 'nother universe from ‘lucky’. The internal damage the thing must have done… Danny gritted his teeth, pushed the thought away. Steve wasn’t bleeding out where he lay, not externally anyway. Therefore there was still a chance he might come through this. He _had to_ assume his partner would come through this.

 

He moved on, because he couldn’t allow himself to fixate on the obvious, inescapable horror of the fact that Steve had been impaled.  His partner could have a broken neck, a broken back, any number of injuries that would mean Danny would have to do his damndest to immobilize him in some way.

 

His shaking hands ran expertly over Steve’s skull, his neck, his torso searching for misalignments, and for hard bits and soft bits where there should be no hard bits and soft bits. His mind was whirring at a hundred miles an hour as he worked. He had to find out a way to get _out._ He wanted to get Steve off the damn spike, human nature demanded he remove the intrusion that didn’t belong. But he knew he couldn’t.He knew that would be insane.He had a brief vision of himself pulling Steve clear of the spike only to see his partner's intestines following the fucking thing out of his body.  Of Steve screaming, bleeding out in seconds, dying right there in his arms.  The ever-present nausea threatened to overwhelm him again, and Danny all but jerked the flashlight out of his mouth, bowed his head and froze, gasping for air, trying to push the hideous image from his mind. 

 

A few moments on, and he gritted his teeth, finished his task, then sat back on his heels. There was nothing else obvious, nothing else screaming out for immediate attention.

 

Danny bit his lip. Okay, so next steps; get out of here, somehow, evade Hesse, somehow. Go for help. Simple. Not. The worst part was that he’d have to leave Steve here. That knowledge hurt like the stab of a knife. But he couldn’t move his partner. Even if he could physically manage it, which was doubtful, it could kill Steve.

 

Danny moved the flashlight then, playing the beam around the pit. He took in the impossible depth, the plank-lined sides…and the freaking line of _bullet holes_ in the wood just above them. _What the fuck?_

He ran the beam of the flashlight along the line of holes, tracing it first one way then the other. It ran at head height along the wall of the pit, nearly end to end. It was plainly deliberately placed - a parting gift from Hesse **,** no doubt **-** and the man must have used a freaking machine gun! Danny watched in dawning horror as he realized the planks were bowing, splintering at the weak point the bullets had created. Soil trickled through the ragged voids in the wood. The wooden barrier revetting the side of the pit was going to collapse! Hesse hadn’t been messing about. As far as he’d been concerned, he’d left them with a death sentence as sure as if it had been their bodies he’d riddled with bullets **.**

 

The wood groaned ominously as Danny knelt there, looking up in shock.  It was going to give. They were going to be buried alive!

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KQ checklist- red-haired child (tick). Danny is the one who has to get them out of it. (tick)


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 

Danny watched in abject horror. The pit was going to cave in! They had to get _out_. Adrenaline now pumping, his breaths coming out in hard, rapid pants, he jerked his head back round to Steve, the flashlight following his gaze.

 

“ _Shit!_ Steve… we’ve got to get out of here. I’m- I'm gonna have to move you, buddy."He grasped Steve’s arm tight, eyes scanning his partner’s torso, then spoke again, voice suddenly soft and utterly desperate.  "How the hell am I gonna move you, huh?”

 

Steve’s gaze found his then, his eyes wide with understanding and poorly suppressed fear.  He shook his head. “G-go. You... go. No time. Wall not... not gonna h-hold… for l-long.”

“Shut up.” Danny huffed in crude dismissal. He gritted his teeth, no longer letting himself even think about the crumbling walls around them. He focused on his task, shone the flashlight on the wooden spike that held Steve captive. Wooden.  It was _wooden_ … Of course! He didn’t need to take it out at all, _he could cut through the damn thing_. He laid the flashlight down beside them, beam aimed towards his partner’s body, then fumbled for the knife which lay discarded near his feet.  Carefully, he slid a hand back under Steve’s body, feeling for the other side of the stake.   Steve moaned long and deep as he moved.

 

Danny’s stomach churned at the thickness of the stake as his fingers traced it. He pushed at it gently, then harder.  No movement. It was no doubt driven deep and solid in the ground.   He bit his lip, hard.

 

"Steve?  I’m gonna try to cut it." He hesitated, eyebrows raised, wordlessly asking for permission, one hand still wrapped around the slippery wood.

 

Steve's eyes found his again, the pale eyelids dipping in understanding.  "Go ahead."

 

Danny licked his lips nervously, his sand-dry tongue sticking to the skin.  "I’m sorry, buddy. It's gonna hurt," he warned unnecessarily.  Some desperately irrational part of him almost hoped for Steve to stop him, to tell him that this wasn't needed, that he had a fantastic alternative to Danny sawing through a wooden stake coated in his best friend's blood, likely causing said friend excruciating pain in the process.

 

Steve let his eyes slide closed instead, rasping out a quietly determined, "I know," and Danny felt him tense in preparation.

 

There was nothing else for it then.

 

To the soundtrack of falling soil and creaking wood, Danny eased hand and knife below his partner and began to saw, his lips pressed tight against the constant threat of bile pushing its way past his throat. Desperation at their predicament ensured that the task seemed to take forever, but Danny held his nerve and finally, _finally_ the knife broke through on the other side of the wooden shaft.  He let the knife drop then in favor of bracing his partner's body with both hands to keep Steve from being jostled with the abrupt shift in position. 

 

Grimacing, he slid Steve’s torso sideways, clear of the stump, before lowering him gently to the ground. "Steve?" he inquired softly.  There was no response, but he knew that Steve was awake.  Could hear his partner's harsh, ragged breathing, could feel the sharp tremors of pain that racked his silent form.   He picked up the flashlight and shone the light once more on Steve's face.  He didn't like what he saw.

 

Eyes squeezed forcefully shut, Steve looked even paler than before.  The only splash of real color on his face – a thin trickle of blood that snaked down his chin from the colorless, bitten-through lip.

 

"Babe?"  He reached for Steve's face again, his badly trembling hand seeking out and offering comfort of physical contact. 

 

Steve shifted minutely, turning into the touch.  His eyes remained closed, but his breathing slowed down a fraction, the lines of pain smoothing out a bit, and Danny smiled through a thick haze of tears that welled in his eyes at the significance of the gesture: the unspoken proof that the intense, powerful bond between them – the one that kept them so wholly attuned to each other's feelings, each other's pain, the one that allowed them to draw on each other's strength when their own failed – was still there, still very much intact in spite of everything.  He wanted to relish this moment right here, to bask in its soothing warmth that even the bone-chilling cold of their underground tomb could not seem to erase.  But he couldn't.  Because reality – in the form of the ominously groaning wood – was knocking too loudly for him to ignore.  As much as he hated it, they had to move. 

 

"We gotta get out of here, babe," he murmured, throwing a frantic glance behind him as the wood creaked louder.  "Now!"

 

He felt Steve nod slightly against his palm.  "You... f-first."

 

He grinned at the huffed out dare and nodded up to where the floor of the bunker used to be.   "I'm hoping the rope’s still up there.  The one they had round my neck. We can use it to pull you out somehow."  He swung his flashlight up the wall toward the edge of the pit, the edge that seemed so incredibly far for his 5'5'' frame, so impossibly out of reach.  The revetting wall of the pit had been constructed with an absurd amount of care. The vertical wooden planks were flush and offered no handholds or footholds other than where they were in the process of splintering… .  He was going to have to try to use that weakened timber as a climbing wall. It was crazy, the whole thing was crazy, hanging off that wall could bring it all crashing down right away… and it would have been challenging if he were in peak condition but now when he should barely be able to fucking stand….

 

He pushed the presumption of failure out of his mind because there was no other choice. He picked up the flashlight and put it back in his mouth.  Moving a short distance away from his partner, he turned and reached up to the bowing wood, jamming his fingers into the bullet holes just above his head. He began to pull himself up, feet scrabbling for a foothold. One of the planks gave way, landing him back down on the ground, soil pouring around his ears. _Fuck._ He moved to the side and tried again, blinking dirt from his eyes, but felt the wood begin to splinter under his weight immediately and released it. He persisted, dogged, searching out another place to try. He dug his nails into a fraction of a gap and hauled himself up again... and this time he raised himself by a good two feet before the board gave way, landing him flat on his back in a shower of dirt.  He moaned aloud at the pain the impact caused him, then turned his head, eyes widening as the flashlight illuminated the spike he'd missed by a matter of an inch.  Fuck.  _Fuck._ He pushed himself back to his feet shakily, leaned heavily against the plank-lined sides for a moment then reached up to try yet again.

 

"Wh-who do you think you are?... Spiderman?... Stand on... m...my... sh-shoulders."

 

The softly whispered rebuke and the insane suggestion that followed had Danny jerking his gaze back toward his stricken partner.  He thought he had misheard at first, but Steve looked deadly serious, even if not entirely focused. 

 

"N-no," Danny stammered, shaking his head in outraged denial, and staggered back over to crouch by his friend.

 

"It's the o-only... way," Steve insisted, determination steadying out his voice.

 

"Shut up!" Danny nearly roared, the very idea of using his gravely injured friend like that making him sick.

 

A cold, trembling hand grasped his then and squeezed, the gesture faint but surprisingly steady.  "Got n-no... ch-choice there... Sh-shortstuff..."

 

Danny manfully resisted punching the smugly grinning bastard in the face. 

 

"H-help me up," Steve gritted out.

 

Danny blinked, hesitating, and Steve was already in motion, teeth clenched and eyes slammed shut in agony as he fought to shift his body upward.

 

"No, NO!" Danny's hands were on Steve's shoulders then, bracing, restraining.  "You can't, Steve.  _I_... can't."

 

Steve shook his head minutely, chest rising and falling in rapid, irregular spurts as he tried to breathe through the violent aftershocks of movement.  "Have t'... D'nny," he insisted breathlessly, his eyes still stubbornly closed. "H-help m'... up..."

 

Danny stared at him in utter horror.  What Steve was suggesting was insane, pure and simple.  There was no _way_ he could even consider this as an option.  This was whacked out even for the SuperSEAL.  Steve was in no shape to do _anything_ , much less impersonate a step stool.  No.  He would do this on his own, thank you very much.  He'd take as much time as he needed, but he would do this on his fucking own.

He shook his head resolutely and reached out, intent on guiding his foolhardy friend back to the ground.But then an almighty groan from the wooden pit wall and a dramatic fall of dirt mere feet away from them underlined their predicament, making a mockery of his intentions. They were simply out of options.  And so Danny did it.  He crushed the sensible, rational part of him that had rebelled at the sheer insanity of Steve's plan and did as he was told.  

 

The whole experience felt strange, taking on a life of its own like some weird, out-of-body experience.  It was maybe just as well, better even, because it was suddenly so much easier for him to detach himself from what he was doing now it didn't seem _real_.It helped him to ignore the pained protests of his own body.  To not think as he pulled Steve to his feet and helped brace him against the side of the pit, his mind struggling to shut out the poorly muffled sounds of his friend's torment.To not think as he somehow scrambled up the wall using Steve's body like a freaking ladder. To not think as he hauled himself onto Steve's quaking shoulders.  To not think as he stood on him, his full weight resting on his gravely wounded friend.  To not think about anything at all as he grasped at the edge of the pit with desperate, clawing fingers, finally hauling himself clear.  His focus, his _sole_ focus was getting out, getting the rope and getting back to Steve.  On the double.

 

The beam of his flashlight bounced over the uneven ground near the edge of the pit, and he nearly cried in relief upon finding the long rope that had once formed the hated noose around his neck lying no more than an arm's reach away.  Grabbing frantically for the sought-out item, he scrambled back toward the edge on hands and knees, shining the flashlight down on his partner.  Steve was leaning heavily against the beleaguered pit wall, helpless to do more but still, unbelievably, upright.

 

"Steve?" he cried out, dangling the rope over the gaping hole like a treasured prize.  "I got it, babe.  I got the rope."

 

He saw a glimpse of Steve's pale, upturned face as his partner looked up at his call, saw his mouth move, the faint, slurred out words just barely reaching Danny's ears.  "s'good..."

“Hang on, hang on," he breathed out, shaking fingers somehow managing to work at a frantic pace as he pulled and twisted the rope into a bowline knot.  He threaded the end of the rope back through the bight, creating a loop to go around Steve's shoulders. Steve’s boating skills had evidently rubbed off on him to at least some extent and right then he was fucking glad for that.  "Here, babe,” he said as he lowered the rope to his partner. “Can you manage to get it over yourself, buddy?” he called. _Please please please._

 

He watched anxiously as Steve took the rope and slipped it with great difficulty over his shoulders and arms before pulling it back up to rest just under his armpits.His partner's soft exhale of “done” was barely audible in the surrounding emptiness.

 

Flashlight in his mouth, Danny secured the rope round his own waist and grasped the length in front of him with both hands. He stood. The task before him should have seemed impossible but the concept of failure didn’t even enter his mind. Success was the only option. He took a deep breath and started to pull and _Jesus_ but Steve was heavy. Danny’s damaged ribs screamed at him, pain seared through his head and his neck and his back.  A wave of dizziness threatened to take him to the ground but he wouldn’t let it, he blanked it out and just kept hauling because the wood was groaning and the air was filling with dust as the soil started to fall inwards in bulk and there was just no time left.

 

Danny threw his full weight backwards, dug his heels into the dirt and _hauled._ He growled out loud at the strain, but kept going, riding on pure desperation and pumping adrenaline. One backwards step at a time, further and further from the sheer edge of Hesse’s pit, closer and closer to the front wall of the building, Danny raised his injured partner up higher and higher, inch by agonizing inch.

 

He had been trying to shine the beam of the flashlight at the top of the pit, watching the rope where it disappeared into the chasm, but it was impossible. He growled out again, teeth clamped down on the flashlight, as he heaved backwards.  The rope tore into the flesh of his hands and dug deep into his back. Step by painful step he fought gravity as it tried to pull Steve back down, to drag Danny back to the precipitous drop. He could feel Steve on the end of the rope, feel him moving. He had to be pushing with his feet, trying to help in spite of his injury, and God-willing keeping the tip of the spike away from the edges of the pit, but he was still a dead weight.  Danny dug in his heels, roared and hauled, dug in his heels, roared and hauled, repeating the cycle over and over and over again.

But everything was happening too quickly and he realized in horror that he wasn’t going to manage in time. It was too much to ask, he was too weak, he was going to _fail_.

 

A sickening groan of collapsing wood, a shout of alarm from Steve, and Danny threw his weight backwards one last time, used the last of his strength in a final desperate attempt to get his partner clear. The flashlight fell from his mouth as he yelled out wordlessly.  The light went out.

 

There was a rush of stale air as the beleaguered sides of the pit finally caved in and then the tension in the rope was gone, disappeared. Danny went over backwards in the darkness.

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N… Turned out our Navy medic beta also doubled as an authority on rope-related activities. When posed the question of ‘how’, he said this could work. He then said of course the man doing the hauling of the rope would have to be pumped with adrenaline to find the strength and overcome the pain from his injuries… and would no doubt be glistening with sweat, his powerful muscles bulging as he strained to lift his heavier companion. We get the unnerving impression that Scablifter understands us both very, very well.
> 
>  
> 
> KQ checklist- Danny has be the strongest one (big fat tick), incorporate the Spiderman line (tick).
> 
> Scablifter checklist- use bowline knot (obedient tick…. the man is trained to kill after all.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 

Danny lay flat on his back trying frantically to draw a breath, his chest in a vice, the long-suppressed pain from his damaged ribs re-awakening with near-blinding ferocity. Clouds of dirt foiled every wheezing attempt to suck air into his lungs and his fingers scrabbled at the soil beneath him as he fought to stay conscious. He choked, rolled onto his side and heaved, vomiting up the pitiful contents of his stomach as stress, nausea and physical exertion all took their toll.

 

Coughing and gagging, he drew his arms up over his head, curling into a fetal position, trying to escape the thick, billowing dust.  He shook from head to foot, battling desperately to get his body back under control, to heave in quick, short breaths.

 

Oxygen finally, finally started to find its way into his system again and his head cleared fractionally as his initial panic receded.  A different kind of panic took its place. _Steve._ He remembered the sudden loss of tension in the rope he had held in his grip, the unwelcome relief of his partner's weight no longer straining his muscles.  _No._ He hadn’t managed to save him! He hadn’t gotten Steve clear in time! Steve had been buried, Steve was… _No!_

A lump rose in his aching throat, but then he shook his head, refusing to admit defeat. He had to try to get Steve out, he had to try to dig him clear of the collapse.   _Now_.  While there was still a chance he might be alive.He rolled over, forced himself onto all fours, eyes squeezed shut against the darkness and the dirt. He felt his way back over, back towards what had been the edge of the pit, following the rope with his fingers as he went.

 

His fumbling hand found the flashlight by sheer, dumb luck and he grabbed it, switched it on and instantly directed the beam to the point where he was certain he would see the rope disappearing down beneath the collapsed soil.

 

The narrow beam of light slid across the clumps of dirt and broken fragments of wood that Hesse had used to conceal the trap.  Then Danny's hand froze as the light illuminated a familiar form.  Steve! Steve was there, lying flat out beside the slumped crater that marked the vestiges of Hesse’s sick trap.

 

“Steve,” he choked out the name, relief making him dizzy. “Steve?”

 

There was no response, not even a twitch.

 

Another flutter of fear stirred deep in his stomach, and he hurried over to his partner’s side, laying the flashlight down beside them.  He reached for Steve’s neck to feel for a pulse. _Please, please, please,_ he chanted wordlessly, eyes taking in the lax jaw, the deathly pallor, visible even despite the layers of dirt.

 

It was there. Weak and fast, but there. Danny sagged down for a second, overwhelmed, and then his gaze slid down toward Steve's abdomen, and his hand followed suit, hovering in indecision above the wooden intrusion in his partner’s gut. As if sensing the possibility he might be touched, Steve began to rouse, moaning softly as he did.  A minuscule shift in position, a slight, ill-timed turn toward Danny's hesitantly frozen hand, and the moan transformed into a hoarse bark of agony.  Steve twisted sharply onto his side, as he sought unconsciously to get away from the pain.

 

Danny jerked back instinctively, his mouth open in mute horror as he watched his friend's body grow rigid, the anguished cry choked off on a breathless gasp.  Steel-blue eyes flew open in alarm, wide and unseeing, before slamming shut again, and Steve began to pant hard and heavy, his body trembling as he struggled to ride out the brutal assault. 

 

His own hands shaking at the sight of his brother's obvious agony, Danny moved, swift and purposeful, cupping Steve’s face, wiping the tears that spilled forth from under the tightly closed eyelids, stroking the sweat-soaked hair.  “E-easy. Breathe babe, just breathe, breathe," he murmured, leaning close enough to press his own dirt-crusted cheek to Steve's clammy, tear-stained one. "You did it. We’re out. We made it.”

 

Danny stayed like that, murmuring quiet, soothing reassurances to his partner, trying to provide him comfort the only way he could. It seemed to take forever before the violently cramped muscles began to relax, and Danny raised his head just in time to see the pained bleary eyes open to half-mast, sluggishly tracking his own. 

 

"G-got the... kn-nife?" 

"What?  No, it's..." Danny's brow furrowed in confusion at the softly huffed out question.  "I think it's... er... still in the pit. Why?"

 

Steve's pallid face twisted into a sorry semblance of a smirk.  "T-too bad... Coulda... p-put... m-me... out o'my... misery..."

 

Danny rolled his eyes, fighting the urge to smack the guy.  "Har-har.  You're a regular comedian, Steven," he bit back, feigning annoyance, despite the fact that his own lips split into an answering smile.  Because joking was good.  Joking meant that Steve was still here, still with him.  That everything was not yet lost.

Danny took a deep breath, then picked up the flashlight, casting the beam of light around them. He stopped it briefly on the stairs, then put the thing back between his teeth so it was pointing down at his partner’s torso. “Okay," he mumbled, words distorted by the obstruction in his mouth,  "Okay, let me get a look at you buddy. I’ve gotta see how bad you’re bleeding after _that_... crazy… insane… after _that._ ”

 

Steve shook his head stubbornly, one hand reaching weakly to capture Danny's. “Y-you... g-go... G-go now.”

 

“Don’t tell me what to do, yeah?” Danny kept talking, strained voice hoarse and low, as he fought like hell to keep the waver out of his tone **.** He ran his hands round the back of Steve’s torso, shining the beam of light on the wound in his abdomen and gently peeling away the clothes as best as he could for a proper look at the flesh beneath. “I’m not an idiot. 16 years I’ve been a cop now, so I'm pretty damn sure I know what to do in a crisis, okay?  So shut the hell up. I know, I _know_ I need to go for help, okay? I know I shouldn’t move you anymore, if I even could because you, my friend, are heavy as hell and I’m possibly not feeling quite as peachy as I could be.”

 

“Danny.” Steve’s voice was soft and pointed.

 

Danny ignored him, determined to keep up the controlled façade, to keep his fears hidden. He carried on with his gentle assessment.  “Yeah. I know all that. But I just need to make sure you’re not bleeding too bad before I go anywhere. Let me see if there’s anything I need to try to do before I go. Okay? I know I can’t do much. Course our current accommodation doesn't seem to include any convenient cleaning fluids or duct tape, not that I’d be insane enough to try out any field surgery, fuck only knows how you didn’t kill me with your little Dr Quinn Medicine Woman impression when you and I were buried under that freaking building. And anyway, that was… this is…”

 

Danny didn’t need to say it. Danny’s injury had been bad, but this was so, so much worse. The stake was too big, the internal damage _had_ to be more complex. It had to be dealt with in an operating theater and fast. But as Danny looked and gently felt his partner’s torso, he was becoming sure of one thing and it was nothing short of a fucking miracle- the stake couldn’t have pierced any major blood vessels, or compromised any vital organs.  If it had, Steve would be dead already. They had gotten unbelievably lucky in that respect.  However, the threat of shock and the promise of infection made the situation dire. Infection was inevitable with the nature of the injury he had in the location it was. Sepsis would follow rapidly as the bacteria developing in the wound spread into his blood and around his body. Then organ failure. Then....

Danny swallowed harshly, forcing the morbid thoughts away.  There was no point in dwelling on this now anyway.They both knew the reality of the situation.

He sat up, wiping shaking hands on his own bare legs, forced a smile onto his lips. “It’s your lucky day, babe. It’s still hardly bleeding.”

“Cork ‘n a bottle?”

 

Danny chuffed a watery laugh. “Yeah, cork in the bottle, buddy. Listen, I know it doesn’t look great, but you’ve gotta believe I’m gonna get you out of this, okay? You’ve gotta stay still as you can and just hang on till I get back, can you do that for me, huh? Power of positive thinking, right?”

 

Steve snorted in agreement, then cringed, his tongue flicking uselessly to scrape across his dust-coated lips.  His brow furrowed as he remembered something.  "W-water..."

 

Danny looked at him ruefully. “Yeah.  I’ll bring some. Promise.” 

 

"Got some in my...  backp-pack."

 

"Your backpack? You brought a backpack? Where is it?"

Steve frowned at him, confused.“My… back?”

 

Danny blinked, shook his head. “Sorry babe. Not there.”

The corners of Steve's mouth pulled down, his shoulders twitching in a weak attempt at a shrug.  "Pit?"

 

"Pit? Awesome. That’s just… awesome.  It’s buried in the pit,” he clarified, jabbing his finger over his shoulder.  "Very helpful, Steven."

 

"Sorry."  Steve stared at him, eyes bright in the beam of the flashlight **.** An instant later, his gaze slid down toward Danny's neck, toward the ridge of swollen flesh Danny was all too painfully aware of – a stark reminder of the noose that had all but succeeded in strangling him. “M'sorry, Danny.”

 

Danny blinked, frowning in confusion at the oddly remorseful tone. “What the hell are you talking about, you’re sorry?  What for this time?”

 

“Meant t-to... rescue you," he slurred around a ragged pant. "F-fuck'd up."

 

“Yeah, well. I ain’t the swooning heroine in your action film, SuperSEAL. You can't be hogging all the fun all the time, right?  Now I’m gonna get help, yeah? You just, just hang on, okay? Can you do that for me?  Huh?”

 

"Yeah..."  Steve nodded, eyes slipping closed for one tired breath before dragging back open with an almost impossible, torturous effort.  "Danny?"

 

"Yeah, babe?"

 

“H-head south... jus' out th'... door.  Two... two miles... then... hang right... ont'...trail... at th'... c-cave... M'truck's at the end...  I hope.  North Shore.... We're... North Shore....”

 

"North Shore, huh," Danny murmured, shaking his head in incredulity.  "No wonder the drive seemed so long..."  He exhaled deeply, chasing away the unpleasant memory of himself, bound and hooded, being tossed about for what felt like hours in the trunk of a car, and looked worriedly down at the pale, sweat and dust coated face of his partner.  _Over two miles,_ he thought grimly, _two fucking miles._ That would take him fifteen minutes on a good day, probably considerably more in his current state.  Best case scenario fifteen minutes until he could even _summon_ help, and then god knows how long until help actually got there.  Another twenty minutes?  An hour?  Two?  Did Steve even have that long? 

 

Steve shivered lightly as if to echo his troubling thoughts, a gasp of pain slipping past the dry, blood-smeared lips, and Danny's face darkened with bleak resolve.  As loath as he was to leave his partner injured and alone in this godforsaken concrete tomb, he had to go.  Now.  Because Steve needed him to.

He reached out again, placing a gentle hand on Steve's cheek, wishing to prolong the contact in case... just in case.  "I'll see you in a bit, okay?" 

 

It was a promise and an expectation of the same, and Steve understood, his eyes dipping tiredly even as he smiled with forced reassurance.   "Okay."  And then those slate blue eyes flew open in alarm, the weary, worried gaze once more seeking out Danny's.

 

"Hesse... Danny, you–"

**"** I know," Danny nodded, his expression growing dark, tense.  "I’ll be careful, yeah?"

 

"Yeah..."  And Steve's eyes slipped closed again.

 

Danny rose, teeth clenched tight against an all-consuming blaze of worry, and staggered the last few feet to the stairs, ignoring the hard clumps of dirt and bits of rock that cut into his bare soles.

 

He prayed he was up to this, up to his mission. He was still running on pure adrenaline and he knew it, but it couldn’t last forever. Sooner or later he was going to crash and crash hard. His head was spinning, the effects of the abuse he’d suffered compounded by his subsequent exertions. But he couldn’t fail, he _couldn’t._ It simply wasn't an option. He hoped to fuck that Hesse was long gone, because the chances of him getting past the man and his thugs unarmed in his condition were remote at best. He forced himself on up the old concrete stairs, leaning heavily against the mold stained walls as he did. The stairwell was pitch black. The outside door had to be shut. He hadn’t seen anything of the structure when he was brought in, the hood having been placed over his head while he was still in his own bedroom (and boy, rightly or wrongly, was Steve gonna give him a hard time for letting himself get taken like that. If Steve lived that was.).  But there had to be a door or he’d be seeing daylight by now.

 

He got to the top of the steps and stopped. He was faced with a breezeblock wall. He shone the flashlight one way, then the other, then right around in a circle, bare feet slipping on the narrow step as he turned.

 

“No,” he murmured, backtracking down a few steps, shining the flashlight up and down the solid concrete walls on both sides of the stairway. There had to be a mistake. _There was no door_. He shook his head, not believing what he was seeing. He _had_ to have made a mistake. He had to have missed something!

 

A lightswitch. There was a lightswitch on the wall. He knew there had been a light on before, he could remember that much, so there had to be power. Hesse must have been using a generator or something.  Could it still be on?  Danny stumbled to the switch, flicked it. Nothing. He flicked it again and again.  _Nothing._ He swung the beam of the flashlight upwards in search of a light fitting. There was one above him. The light bulb was smashed, the concrete ceiling around it pock-marked by bullets. Someone had shot the light out. Danny shook his head, knowing without a doubt it would be the same story downstairs.  It was Hesse's doing.  Had to have been.  The son of a bitch must have shot out the lights at the same time he’d shot through the revetting boards in the pit.  He'd left them with nothing, no hope at all, trapped in the blackness.

 

He turned again, looked back at the wall at the top of the stairs where he had thought the door should have been. He walked up to it, raised an uncertain hand. He touched it, ran a finger down it. The cement between the blocks was tacky. He staggered back a step, shook his head, rubbed a hand down his face, swiping at his eyes before he looked again, fighting against the unavoidable conclusion.

 

But there was no escaping it, no denying it. The blockwork was new.

 

_They’d been walled in._

 

Danny stared, incredulous. He was trying to absorb what Hesse had done to them but his exhausted mind just couldn’t seem to accept it. It was insane.  Hesse was fucking _insane_. He’d left them in a collapsing pit and he still felt the need to freaking wall them in? What the fuck? He shook his head, then blinked in realization. Hesse didn’t just want them to die, he wanted their bodies to be entombed inside the building.  Imprisoned. Imprisoned like his father had been when he had died?  Why?  To ensure that even their bodies would never be found?  That their families and friends would never know what had happened to them, would never even have closure from their deaths? Was that Hesse's grand plan all along? To make sure their loved ones suffered too?

 

He had the sudden feeling of being watched and turned his head sharply. Nothing. Hesse? Was it him? Did he have freaking _cameras_ set up in there? Was he watching this, watching their pointless struggles to survive, waiting for Danny to crack, waiting to watch them die one after the other?

 

Shaking his head, Danny took a step forward, laid a hand against the wall. He shook his head harderthenas the ramifications of Hesse’s vengeful plan fell slowly into place.

 

“No. No. No-no-no-no…” Danny chanted the word over and over again in complete denial as he pressed his palms flat against the barrier and moved them around, trying to feel for a weakness in the wall. He reached up, shoved against the highest blocks because surely, _surely_ the cement couldn’t all be set enough to keep them in place. Nothing moved. _Fuck!!!_ He started to scratch at the cement between the highest blocks with his fingernails, tentatively at first, testing, but then frantically, scratching and gouging at the all-but-dry compound, succeeding in dislodging only tiny flakes. How the hell long had he lain unconscious at the bottom of the fucking pit?

 

Breaths coming fast and hard he swung the flashlight beam around at his feet, looking for something, _anything,_ he could use as a tool. He found a small, sharp stone and picked it up, balanced the flashlight against a step so it was angled up to illuminate the blocks. He started to hack desperately at that cement, stab it, slice it. He was tearing his knuckles, his fingers as he worked, his blood smearing against the blocks, breath starting to hitch in his lungs when he saw he was making no significant impression whatsoever. He fumbled, fingers losing their grip on the stone and it fell to the ground but he just kept on scratching, tearing nails and skin, panic escalating exponentially. They were trapped. _They were trapped._ Steve needed medical assistance _now._ No way would he survive for long with a horrific injury like that, just no way.

 

An image of himself holding Steve in his arms in the suffocating blackness as his partner died a slow, torturous death came to him, twisting his insides in a vicious knot, choking his breath away. He sobbed, punched at the blocks over and over and over, then staggered backwards, clattering down several steps and landing on his knees, still staring up at the hated wall in utter disbelief.

 

They were fucked. No one knew where they were, no one would find them until it was too late.

 

_They were fucked!_

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N KQ checklist - uh... nothing! Oh no! And we still have at LEAST two things to tick off... Yeah, this chapter was all Swifters and I selfishly indulging in our shared sickness (she's totally getting the blame for the wall)
> 
> A/N 2 Some of you have been complaining about our exceeding cruelness with regard to cliffhangers and pleading with us to make them stop. We'd love to oblige, we've tried and tried, but we just can't do it, being evil twins and all. We are very, very sorry. 
> 
> Please review! Your reviews make our day, motivate us to write, make us smile.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Okay, so, originally, we weren’t gonna go here but Scablifter – the actual real frontline multiple war-zone experienced Navy medic – told us that he would ‘give this a go cause it might help a bit’ in this situation. His idea entirely…  And we obey orders… especially in the interest of whump and angst (no we are not going to stop shifting the blame for the whump onto poor Scablifter).
> 
>  
> 
> So be warned - scenes of Navy-approved suffering ahead.

 

 

 

**Chapter 7**

 

Steve lay where Danny had left him, keeping his eyes closed and his breathing as steady as possible, knowing that even the tiniest bit movement would trigger another flare of pain that might just send him back to oblivion.  And he couldn't afford that.  He had to stay awake in case Danny needed him, in case there was trouble.  Logically he knew that there wouldn't be much that he'd be able to do in his current state if Hesse was indeed waiting for Danny outside.  But then logic never entered into the equation when it came to protecting those he cared about, those he loved.  Logic couldn't stop him.  Not while he still had even a modicum of strength left, not while there was still breath in his body.  So he lay there and listened, praying that Danny would be able to make it safely back to the school parking lot and not run into any trouble.  Hoping like hell that his body wouldn't fail him should what he feared come to pass – should Hesse be waiting right outside.

 

The inescapable pain and the shock and disbelief over how things had gone down had left him reeling, made his stomach churn with near-crippling guilt.  Danny had been through hell and yet it had come down to him to get Steve out of that collapsing pit, and it was down to him now to go for help, simply because Steve was rendered about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.  His partner should be getting strapped to a gurney right about now, not having to traipse barefoot through the freaking rainforest in his boxer shorts to summon backup to rescue his sorry ass.

 

_Barefoot... Fuck!_ He should have made Danny take his boots at least.  Why the hell hadn't he thought of that?  Useless, so fucking useless!  _Fuck  fuck  fuck_

 

Steve screwed his eyes tightly shut, tried to close his mind to everything but the simple act of breathing, because right then, that was challenging enough.  In and out, in and out.

 

He must have drifted because suddenly he became aware of strange noises floating down to him from the darkened stairway.  Faint, low-pitched scraping of stone against stone interspersed with harsh, erratic breathing, and then mumbled words that rang loud yet hollow and indistinct within the concrete walls.  They didn't resemble the sounds of a struggle, not really.  Still, Steve couldn't be sure.  Frowning in apprehension, he strained his hearing even further, trying to peer up into the pitch blackness that had swallowed up his partner seconds, minutes, hours ago.

 

"D'nny?" The faint rasping call of his friend's name was barely loud enough to reach his own ears, and Steve licked his dry, dust-coated lips, gathering his strength to try again.  "Danny!"  The second attempt was no better – a thin, barely perceptible noise that ended on a harsh, wheezing cough as his lungs sought to clear out the dry, dust-filled air.  His jaw twitched sharply and he bit hard into the tender flesh of his lip, the metallic tang of blood filling his mouth even as his body arched off the floor in silent agony.  _Breathe,_ he commanded himself as his fingers clenched and unclenched convulsively at his sides, scraping furiously at the dirt floor in a desperate bid to keep him conscious.   _Breathe!_

 

The odd scraping noise stopped and there was a short ill-boding silence, followed by a slow shuffle of footfalls that drifted closer and closer until his friend's familiar figure appeared in the doorway, the beam of the flashlight cutting a path through the darkness before him like a knight's sword through the thick of battle.

 

Danny didn't look like much of a knight at that moment, however.  His face, ghostly in the torchlight, looked lost and strangely shuttered. His hunched shoulders screamed ‘defeat’.  He swung the flashlight around, the harsh beam of light skimming across the dirt floor, across Steve's face.   The former SEAL averted his gaze, but it was already too late, as the bright flash momentarily overloaded his photoreceptors, plunging him into temporary blindness.  He blinked furiously, trying to get the picture back, to clear away the enormous dark spot that filled his entire vision.  By the time he could see again, Danny was already on the other side of the hole, searching for something along the walls.  Slowly at first, then faster and faster still, the light bouncing erratically between the age-beaten confines of their concrete enclosure with the kind of frantic desperation of a drowning man grasping at whatever flotsam he can find. 

 

Something was wrong.  Very, very wrong.  Danny shouldn't be back.  He should have left, long ago.  Something had happened.  What?   

 

He watched in astonishment as Danny picked up a piece of broken timber and began slamming it violently against the mildew-stained wall, panting out disjointed phrases that were swallowed up partially by the loud echoes of the cracking wood.  Steve could just make out "Hesse" and "fucking bastard", and then the timber was tossed roughly aside and Danny ran at the wall as if it were enemy advance guard, slamming his bare fists against it over and over and over again, as if hoping somehow to bring that wall down by sheer force of will.

"Danny?" he rasped, trying to capture his friend's attention with as little movement as possible.  "Danny," he tried again as his partner just didn’t seem to hear him.  "Wha... what's... wrong? Danny. _Please_.”

 

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Danny spun round again. There _had_ to be another way out, there _had_ to be… but the narrow beam of light showed him nothing but cold, gray concrete walls. They seemed to be closing in on him, threatened to suck the air out of his lungs, seemed to press on his aching chest.

It was all too much. Claustrophobia, fear for his partner, the pain and dizziness and nausea from his own injuries, the recent memories of his own abuse, an uncontrollable loathing for Aiden Hesse... they all crashed together, tearing away all access to logical thought. He punched the wall, scratched at it, consumed with desperation, barely noticing the red smears left behind by his damaged hands. There had to be another way out. _There had to be._

_Fuck._

****

He could almost feel his sanity slipping. He felt eyes on him again, a distinct, intrusive sensation, and he turned, fast, heart pounding. There was nothing. Still _nothing._ Fucking Hesse and his hidden cameras!

 

“I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU, HESSE!  YOU HEAR ME?” he screamed, then went to launch himself at the wall again. But he staggered, legs nearly going out from under him.  And in that very moment something punched through the mire; his name, spoken by his gravely injured partner. The pain-filled voice was quiet but the uncharacteristic _need_  in the deep tone screamed out to him and gave him what he so desperately needed - an anchor. Something to latch on to, to help him bring himself back under control. 

 

Danny froze swaying, blinking dazedly at the bright smear of red his bloodied fingers had left on the dreary gray of the concrete before him.   He swallowed dryly, suddenly feeling horribly weak and sick, and squeezed his eyes shut.  Hands fisted tightly by his sides, he made himself breathe evenly until the blooming panic ebbed.Their situation was completely and utterly shitty. There was no escaping that… but he had to get a grip and use his freaking head. His partner needed him.

 

He scrambled back to Steve’s side on legs that felt like jelly, dropping to his knees beside him, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hey. Hey buddy," he whispered, trying to force his voice to sound even. He paused to clear his aching throat. "How you holding up?”

Steve’s breathing was ragged and harsh, each breath ground out between gritted teeth. “Wh-what happ’ned?”

Danny hesitated before he answered, sore hands now rubbing gently at the soiled material of Steve’s shirt, which felt stiff beneath his fingers. He didn’t want to admit how bad things were… but he had never lied to his partner and he wasn’t about to start now. He blew out a breath.“Okay.  Okay, they... uh... they blocked off the exit, _walled it up,_ " he forced out, anger vying with trepidation in the quiet words.  "Who the hell even does that, huh? I mean… but I tried. I really tried to get through it, but it's not... I’m sorry. I’ll keep trying, I will, but… for now we’re trapped." He sucked in a sharp breath, another useless apology spilling out on an exhale. "I’m so fucking sorry, Steve."

Steve nodded silently even as the implications unfolded in his mind.He was no fool, he knew what the lack of access to immediate medical help meant for him… and he knew Danny would know it too. They both understood the reality of the situation. They’d both seen enough horrors in their time to comprehend the trouble he was in.

Steve was a realist, he knew the chances for his own survival were now minimal at best.He could cope with that. Could make peace with the very real possibility of dying here.  But Danny... Danny was a whole other matter.  He had been hoping against hope that Danny would make it out, make it to safety.  And now that hope had been smashed to bits against Hesse's twisted sense of revenge. For all Danny was on his feet and doing his damndest to be strong for the two of them, he was hurt and exhausted and dehydrated.  And both of them knew full well they would most likely not be missed until they failed to show up for work in… two days’ time? Was it still two days? He had no idea how long they had been there in reality. Either way, two days would be a death sentence for Steve, but it would be long and dangerous for Danny in his depleted condition, too. There was every chance _neither_ of them would make it out of this.

"They'll... find us," Steve whispered, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the sudden pang of despair that twisted sharply in his heart.  Denial, after all, wasn't just a river in Egypt.He lifted his arm to reach for the hand that lay on his shoulder. "The team... they'll find us."

Beside him Danny smirked humorlessly. Of course they would find them - they were too good for any other outcome. The question was whether or not they would find them _in time_.Danny shifted, capturing Steve's searching fingers and squeezed his hand gently in his own. “Yeah. Yeah, they’ll find us.”

Emotions were seriously threatening to boil to the surface and Danny ground his teeth hard into his bottom lip, the sharp prickle of pain helping him find his focus once more. “Okay," he exhaled, "Okay.So we’re stuck here. Can’t get out. Unless you brought some handy explosives. Did you? Huh?” As tongue-in-cheek as the suggestion was, he fought to keep the flare of hope out of his voice because when did Steve ever go anywhere without secreting a couple of grenades about his person?

“S-sorry,” came the quiet, crushing response.

_Fuck._ Danny ducked his head for a moment before responding. “Okay. That’s okay... seriously?”

A smile twisted onto Steve’s lips. There was a short silence. “M’sorry Danny.”

“Shut up, huh? Stop apologizing’. It sounds wrong comin’ out your mouth. What the hell have you got to be sorry for this time?”

The smile faded, Steve's gaze growing rueful, serious.  “You h-hang on... okay?" he murmured, avoiding the question.  "Even if I can't... if I'm... not around... You h...have t'... hang on.  Promise.”

Danny gritted his teeth so hard his jaw felt about ready to snap under pressure.  He fought to keep his voice steady because… just _fuck!_ “No. No, just _no_. You’re not gonna die, you hear me? Not gonna happen.”

“Danny.”

 

Steve sounded so tired and so utterly resigned that Danny nearly lost it.  Despair wrapped around his throat in a stifling vise, his breath hitching in concert with his painfully stuttering heart.But just no way, _no way_ was he letting Steve give up like that, it wasn’t going to happen. He shook his head vehemently. 

 

“No. You’ve always been a stubborn bastard, McGarrett, and you ain’t stopping now, you got me? We're going to get out of this, _both_ of us.” He ducked his head for a moment, fighting against the acid burn of tears, then looked Steve in the eye.  “There must, there _has_ to be a way I can keep you going. There must be _something_ I can do.” 

Steve shook his head minutely against the hopeful, desperate plea in Danny's voice, let his eyes slide closed.“Can’t take it out.”

“No, I know that.”

“And nothin' t'... clean it with.”

"No, no handy disinfecting products this time," Danny agreed.  “Wait, water. The water in the backpack?”

“N-not sterile.”

“No, but it would be something, right?”

 

There was a protracted silence. “Matches... 'n my pocket.”

Danny snorted uncertainly. “Oookay. You got cigars in there too, buddy?”

Steve's eyes opened a slit and he favored Danny with something of an exasperated glare.  “C-cauterize it.”

Danny stared at Steve in increasing horror as he realized what his partner was proposing.  His mouth worked silently, words stuck in his throat in a sharp-edged ball of distress.

Steve plowed on, seemingly unaware.“Might give me a…chance.  M’be.  C-clean it s-some.  S-slow... infection down."

_Fuck, fuck, fuck._ Danny’s stomach turned at the mere concept of thrusting hot metal into his partner’s horrific injury. Jesus. Did people even really do that outside of cowboy movies?  “You for real?”  The words were out before he even consciously processed them.

 

Steve blinked in confirmation. “Seen it done.”

 

“Did it... uhm... did it work?”

Another silence answered that question. “But it might…" As if sensing Danny's shocked reluctance, Steve curled his fingers a bit tighter around Danny's hand, the faint squeeze conveying an apology."You don’t have to. I know it’s a lot to…”

“Shut up," Danny growled, the impossible words forced out between tightly clenched teeth.  "Like hell I don’t.”

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Danny gazed into the flickering red flames of the fire he had built, fueled by fractured sections of wood hauled from the vestiges of Hesse’s pit. He felt like shit on so many levels it was hard to separate out the physical pain from the psychological, but his focus was on his partner. Sighing, he wrapped the torn strip of Steve’s shirt tight round his palm, wincing as it pulled on the shredded skin of his knuckles, then reached towards the heat. He picked up the short, narrow length of metal rod he’d retrieved from amongst the dirt and rubble, watched as the tip glowed red, then turned it, laid it down again.  He flicked a quick glance behind him, then snorted and shook his head before gazing back down at Steve.“I think Hesse is watching this. I hate that.  I don’t want him to see this.”

Steve frowned, confused. “C-cameras?”

Danny nodded, glanced around again. “Can’t see any. But I can feel it. Can’t you feel that?” He turned to meet Steve’s eye and blinked when he read concern layered in alongside the agony.

 

“Th-thinks we’re dead. Why…” Steve trailed off, grimacing.

“Easy. Easy buddy,” Danny soothed, grabbing Steve’s hand tight until those slate blue eyes fluttered open again. “Fuck. You’re okay. You’re okay. It's okay."  He snorted again, lips twisting with a self-deprecating smile.  "I get it, you think I’m being paranoid, huh. But it ain’t crazy. It fits…. And I can _feel_ it. I know when someone’s watching me.”

The concern was back in Steve’s eyes, but he said nothing, and Danny looked away, glancing into the flickering shadows before leaning forwards to check the rod again.

“R-ready? Place's gonna fill with... s-smoke,” Steve huffed out finally, when the awkward silence between them began to stretch impossibly tight, his pain and carefully disguised trepidation at what was to come beginning to leak out as impatience.

“Yeah. Just another minute.” It was nearly ready, nearly red hot all round, nearly ready to sear the bacteria from Steve’s flesh.  Danny just wasn’t sure if _he_ was ready.  He shook his head slowly.  “Ever wonder why life just keeps on fucking us over, time after time?”

Steve snorted, squeezing his eyes shut as he breathed through another wave of agony.

Danny glanced at him, took in his strained features, shadowed in the flickering light. “I know, I know, negative things happen to negative people, right? It’s down to me.”

Steve opened his eyes and looked at him, face filled with regret.  He opened his mouth to respond, but Danny touched his shoulder, forestalling his words. “Sorry, forget I said that. Not the time, is it.”

Steve smiled grimly, mournful understanding flickering in the hooded eyes.  Because that was half their problem, wasn't it?  It was _never_ the right time for them to talk things out. He didn't press the point, however, too exhausted, in too much pain to do anything but agree with Danny.He glanced at the glowing metal. “Danny… I think it’s ready. Y-you got t'move it round the e-edges of the wound, round the side of the... s-spike.  Yeah? Then roll me o-on t' my side and do... entry wound.  K?”

Danny laughed a high pitched laugh, cut short as he bit his wavering lip, _hard._ “I know. I know what I’ve gotta do, man.”

Steve licked his lips, sucked in a breath.  “D-do it.”

But Danny hesitated, worrying his lip as he looked down at his friend’s staunch face. There was so much he wanted to say, so much on his mind and this moment felt so _final_. He opened his mouth.

Steve's hand squeezed his again, and Danny's words died out in his throat at the look of complete, naked trust in the steel-blue eyes that gazed back into his.  “Do it.”

Danny nodded, blew out a long, shaky breath. Reaching beside him, he picked up the tight roll of material he’d selected from Steve’s ruined clothes due to its relative cleanness and moved it up towards Steve’s face. Meeting his eyes again, Steve opened his mouth to let Danny place the thing between his teeth.

Feeling like he was trapped in some hideous dream, Danny moved to sit astride Steve's hips. Wordlessly, Steve slid his hands down to rest on the ground by his sides and Danny carefully placed his knees on top of them, ready to pin him down as best he could while he worked.

Steve followed his uncertain gaze steadily and nodded once, giving his partner silent permission.

“Okay. On three, buddy. One…two…three…” Tears pricking at his eyes, Danny silently cursed Hesse’s name then pressed the hot metal against Steve's wound, trying but failing to blank everything else out as his partner’s back arched up off the dusty ground, his hoarse, muffled screams echoing around their prison loud enough to wake the dead.

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KQ Checklist- Er… STILL not got to those last things. Man.
> 
>    
> Scablifter checklist- Cauterize the entry and exit wounds around the intruding stake (bemused tick). He gave us no choice. He insisted he WOULD try this. There was a bloodthirsty yet curious gleam in his eye as he suggested it. Steve's Navy, Scablifter's Navy - they are bound to have the same stupid ideas, right?  However, his suggestion did bring out an answering bloodthirsty glint in OUR eyes too, so…


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

 

The stench of burning flesh seemed to hang in the stale air, clinging to everything.Putrid and inescapable, it wrapped itself around Danny like the gooey muck of a quagmire, slithering up into his nose, his mouth, his throat, choking him, making him gag.  One hand clamped over his mouth, Danny scrambled a few inches away from his motionless partner and retched miserably, his empty stomach spasming over and over with each violent, dry heave, sending ripples of pain through his ribs and his throat.  

He sagged back on his heels, utterly spent and shaking from head to foot.  He closed his eyes momentarily, but popped them back open in the same instant when the image of Steve's skin sizzling sickeningly as the glowing metal rod pressed against it appeared before him once more in vivid color.  He swallowed convulsively, forcing down another wave of bile.  That image, the memory of him cauterizing Steve's wound, he didn't think he was ever going to forget it.  Along with the heart-wrenching sounds of his partner's screams it would haunt his dreams until the day he died.  

He knelt there, praying for the nausea to pass. He listened to Steve’s labored breathing. His partner’s suffering made his own injuries seem like nothing. Irrelevant. He knew on some level that his ribs felt _wrong,_ that his balance was off, that every breath hurt his neck, his hands were… fucked, his reactions were slow… but exhaustion and stress were combining to make him feel almost _numb._ Distant. And cold too. It was becoming bitterly cold in the bunker now the little fire was almost out.

 

Or maybe it was more than that, because even down here it surely shouldn’t be _that_ cold. Not here on Oahu. Maybe he was beginning to fade too. Maybe that was it. The adrenaline was only ever going to carry him so far.

 

He looked back behind him, his gaze lingering on Steve’s deathly still form. His partner’s skin was so pale he seemed virtually transparent in the fading orange light cast by the embers of the dying fire.  Steve looked... otherworldly almost, an ethereal shell that would disintegrate the moment Danny's hand so much as brushed it.  The thought made his stomach churn once more and he had the sudden, dizzyingly overwhelming need to get closer to Steve, to touch him, to _feel_ that he was real.

He crawled back over to where Steve lay and reached out, hesitantly at first, gently pushing a sweat-soaked curl of hair back into place. “Steve?” he murmured.  Nothing, no response.  Steve remained unconscious. He had passed out partway through the horrific process which was nothing but a blessing at the time. But he hadn’t come back round… and Danny was increasingly plagued with doubts. He stroked Steve’s sweat-soaked face.  His brother's skin felt hot - too hot. It seemed that infection might already have set in. Had all his efforts been for nothing, he wondered in mounting despair. Had he made Steve scream like that for no reason whatsoever?

He shook his head slowly. He knew the reasoning behind what he’d done, he knew it was a decision they had made _together._ But what if, what if the added pain, the increased pressure on Steve’s beleaguered body… what if it had been too much. What if what Danny had really done was give his partner a death sentence. Maybe Steve would have struggled on for long enough if he’d been left as he had been but now… maybe Danny had taken that chance away from him.

Danny ran a shaky hand down his face, trying to chase the morbid doubts away.  He couldn't give in to them now.  He just couldn't.  It wouldn't do either of them any good.

He let out a deep, steadying breath, gazing down at his partner's slack face, feeling torn. He was beyond exhausted.  He needed to rest. He wanted nothing more than to sit with Steve, to hold his friend and try to comfort him. He couldn’t let himself sleep in case Steve needed something… but just rest. But his instincts were screaming at him. They had to survive this, which meant he couldn’t afford to stop. There was more work to be done. He had to keep fighting. Had to keep plugging away, scraping at those blocks, trying to get them out of there. And they needed water.  Urgently. They were both dehydrated. He had never been this thirsty before in his life, his dry tongue felt two sizes too big for his mouth.  Steve had brought water with him.  Only it was in his backpack… which was now buried at the bottom of Hesse’s freaking pit.

He shook his head again in utter denial at their fucked up situation. This had to rank high up there amongst the shittiest days of his entire life, and, boy, had there been some shitty days. Past memories began to leak through before he could clamp down on them; 9-11 and Rachel's betrayal and Peterson's twisted revenge plot and Matty, Matty, Matty... and _fuck_ he was _losing it_.He buried his face in his hands, digging his torn nails into his scalp in a futile effort to drive away his demons.  Then he jerked as he felt the strongest sensation of eyes looking at the back of his head. And he was getting so fucking fed up with that, so fed up with knowing Hesse was watching their every move from every angle. Watching them suffer. Watching Steve scream in pain, waiting for Danny to fail to save him.

Several times now he’d scanned the room, but he couldn’t find the damn cameras to smash them up. They had to be tiny. Covert. Nothing but the best. He fumbled for the flashlight and swept it around again. Nothing.

He forced himself to his feet then turned slowly, anger growing exponentially. “YOU'RE A DEAD MAN, HESSE! YOU HEAR ME?! YOU'RE A FUCKING DEAD MAN!” He screamed the words into the shadows and they echoed round and round him until it felt like someone else was screaming them at _him_.

He stood, blinking in shock at the disorienting effect.  He had to stop this.  Had to stop letting Hesse get to him.  Had to ignore the man's invisible presence and keep focused.  He shook himself and went to turn back to Steve, but then whipped his head back around as he saw _something_ move out of the corner of his eye, something shifting in the shadows. He jerked the flashlight back.

 

Nothing. There was nothing there. _Great_. He really _was_ losing it.

Huffing out a shaky breath and muttering words of self-recrimination, he turned his gaze back towards Steve. His partner was still out. Dead to the world. Danny bowed his head, pushing a powerful surge of grief down, hard. He raked his hands through his dirt and blood coated hair.  He had to try to focus.

"Right," he exhaled finally, flicking his gaze over towards the dark stairwell, then the other way towards the collapsed pit, undecided. Trying his damndest to get them out had to be the priority… but at the same time he _knew_ even making an impression on Hesse’s wall would take him days. Literally. Steve needed water and _he_ needed water. Much as he was loath to acknowledge his own needs, he knew he had to keep himself on his feet for as long as he could.  And while digging a hole in the collapsed pit would be no mean feat either, the collapse was recent, the spoil would be loose.  A few hours should do it if he was lucky and dug down to the right place straight away.  “Water," he said to the still form beside him.  "Gonna get us water, buddy. You ain’t gonna die. Hear me? Not gonna let you.”

Mouth set in grim determination, Danny gripped the flashlight tighter and, with one lingering backwards glance at his partner, stepped wearily over to the vestiges of the pit.

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Steve drifted on the very edge of consciousness, never quite managing to return to full awareness.  His mind, swathed in suffocatingly thick blankets of pain, exhaustion and growing fever, refused to allow him more than occasional flashes of the outside world – the crackle of a fire, a muffled murmur of words, a welcome, soothing touch of a cold hand against his burning skin.  

Danny. 

 

His partner was there, beside him, he knew it without even having to look.  And the knowledge pulled at him, made him feel safe, kept him from slipping completely back into the perilously close blackness.  And then, abruptly, his partner's comforting presence was gone, and a new one had taken its place – colder, foreign, different.   It was close, too close, a glacial wave that crept slowly up on him, dragging him under.  He shivered from the sudden drop in temperature, the uncomfortable, fear-laden iciness that seemed to seep into his very soul.  Gasped harshly as his body's involuntary shudder reignited the searing agony in his gut.

_"You're dying."_

The oddly hollow, mournful words floated toward him, echoing the similar growing conviction in his own mind.  Maybe he had spoken the words himself? He frowned, confused. Then the chilling presence shifted higher, its frigid breath ghosting over his cheek, and Steve tensed, struggling to peel open his lead-heavy lids.

"Who... who's there?" he rasped, squinting blearily into the surrounding stillness. 

 

Nothing.  There was nothing there.  Nothing but the bleak gray of concrete and the clumped black of dirt, illuminated feebly by the softly glowing embers. 

"Hel-lo?" he tried again, his voice fading out with pain and exhaustion.  And let his eyes slip shut once more in grim acceptance when, predictably, no answer came. 

 

 _Great,_ he thought, smiling mirthlessly, as he felt the syrupy darkness of oblivion pull at him once more.  He was hallucinating now.  Fever, must be the fever.  It was to be expected, he supposed.  If anything, it would only get worse.

 

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Danny dug slowly, a length of broken plank passing muster as an improvised shovel.  His torn and bloodied hands were wrapped in strips of material torn from the bottom of Steve’s shirt. The flashlight was squeezed tight between his teeth, and his jaw was aching from the pressure. If they ever, _ever_ got out of there, he told himself, the first thing he was going to do was buy a box of freaking headtorches and never, ever go anywhere without one again.

A laugh bubbled up, almost escaping before he could clamp down on it. He was damn well aware that there was a chance, a good chance, that his sanity was being chipped away by the endless, ridiculous hurdles being placed in their path. By the way he seemed to fail inevitably and spectacularly at every turn. By the darkly looming knowledge that they could die down there. That this could be it. That he might never see his kids again. That he might watch Steve die then fade away himself. He imagined Grace, never ever knowing what had happened. Imagined the impact of losing her father and her Uncle Steve in one fell swoop. Fuck fuck _fuck_!

He had to stop thinking. He was succeeding pretty well at blanking out the constant presence of that cold, penetrating gaze he could feel aimed intently at him, he just had to try harder with the rest of it.

 

He shook his head, clamped down on everything… and kept digging. He was in the center of the elongated crater that marked the former location of Hesse’s deathtrap. The collapse had been dramatic, both sides having given way and sagged inwards. Danny estimated the thing had been about ten feet deep which meant he had more than six feet of dirt and rock and rubble and splintered timber to dig through to get to the base where the backpack would hopefully be.

He paused periodically to put down his plank and throw handfuls of loosened spoil up the way, clear of the crater and well away from Steve.

 

He really _couldn’t_ feel his fingers anymore, which was undoubtedly a good thing, because whenever the light from the flashlight gripped between his teeth caught them, there was no avoiding the crimson showing through the check material of Steve’s shirt. His fingers felt sticky beneath the cloth, tacky with blood and dirt. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. He just had to get the backpack.  He wasn’t going to stop. Not until he got water for Steve.  No way.

His mind drifted again of its own volition, this time to their team and to Steve's fervently expressed conviction that they would be found.  Maybe they _would_ get lucky.  Lord knows they were due for a change in fortune after the shit that had been dealt to them.  Maybe Five-0 would catch a case and the team would try to contact them, come looking for them.

Of course it would have to be a pretty goddamn big case for that to happen.

Chin, Kono and Lou had known full well how important this hike was to them both, having been witness to too many of the partners’ petty arguments of late. It all seemed so pathetic, so pointless now. _A chair_.How could he have gotten so upset about Steve wanting to choose his chair when the man had stood by his side through every traumatic event life had flung his way since the two of them had met? What the hell did it matter if he was a control freak? Why couldn’t Danny just accept that, accept it as part of the same McGarrett package that also brought him the fearless loyalty he’d relied on so many times?

The things Danny had yelled at him in anger, the things he'd said – knowingly hurtful, cruel, below the belt – they haunted him now.  Steve had said some things too, to be sure, and he hadn't been pulling any punches either.   But after all that was said and done it was Steve who had made the first move to try to make things right, it was Steve who'd apologized.  And it wasn't until much later that Danny had finally understood the odd expression he saw flicker in his partner's eyes when Steve had poked his head into Danny's office, all but begging for an apology.  It was fear – raw, naked fear. So many people had walked out on Steve throughout his life:  abandoned him, lied to him, betrayed him.   It had made him both incredibly needy of strong human connections and wary of them, afraid of getting his heart stomped on yet again by someone close to him, someone he trusted, someone he loved.  The growing  tension between the partners, the almost outright animosity in some of their latest spats must surely have magnified that fear, and Steve had probably been almost expecting that Danny would abandon him, too.

The sad part was, Steve's fears hadn't been that far off, because at the very moment when Steve had walked into his office that day, Danny _had_ been filling out that transfer request form, his resolve to actually go ahead and submit it absolute in the heat of the moment. Feeling suffocated and undermined by his friend's need to control every detail of his life, he was genuinely prepared to leave Steve and the tightly knit ohana that went along with him.  But now Steve was the one leaving, the one slipping away, minute by fucking minute. 

A wave of guilt crashed over him, hot and suffocating, and Danny froze mid-dig and bowed his head, hastily re-gathering his fraying emotions. He had to stop letting himself go there.  He had screwed up, had allowed things to go too far for both of them.  And so now he had to find a way to fix it.  All of it.  Thinking about the horrible mess of things between him and Steve and the very real possibility that he might never get a chance to mend what had been broken because they, both of them, were slowly but surely running out of time, was not going to help him do that.  He simply couldn't afford to go there, couldn't let himself even consider that his best friend, his brother, the wonderful and utterly irreplaceable man he had grown to love as fiercely and completely as his own flesh and blood was dying quietly a couple of feet away. It just couldn’t happen. It _wouldn’t_ happen.

 

The team would come in time. He had to believe in that.

He kept on digging.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

"Would you look at those waves, Cuz?  Looks like best ones of the season yet!"

 

Chin Ho Kelly nodded in acknowledgement, smiling at his younger cousin's childlike excitement.  Kono had been hounding him to go surfing for weeks, their last such outing having been well over a month ago.  And even though they weren't here at full complement, with Lou being busy working on some urgent house project and Steve and Danny doing their couples therapy thing, that fact did little to dampen Kono's exceptionally bubbly mood.  The young woman was all but bouncing in her seat all the way to the North Shore and was now reminding Chin of a young impatient mare, chomping at the bit to take off into the water. 

 

Chin's phone rang just as they began removing the surfboards from the top rack of Kono's red Cruze, and Chin stopped mid-movement, one hand holding on to the partially untied board to keep it from slipping to the ground while the other fished around in the pocket of his boardshorts for his cell. He checked the number and exhaled in resignation, raising an eyebrow at Kono. Work. He should've expected it, really. This was Murphy's Law at its finest – they had literally just arrived and he had a sinking feeling that they'd be heading back before they even had a chance to get wet. 

 

He wasn't wrong. 

 

He listened to the dispatch, his face grim.

 

“Yes, Officer Kalakaua is here with me. Can you contact Lou Grover?”

 

“We caught a case?”  Kono was watching him with an expression that was equal parts hopeful denial and concern.  He nodded, the corners of his lips tightening with regret.

 

“Yeah. Double homicide down at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.”

 

Kono frowned at that, a deep line creasing her smooth forehead. “Touristy location," she murmured pensively, as she tied the last knot around her surfboard before slipping back into the car.  "I bet the governor is going to be all over us to get this cleared up quickly.  The press is gonna go nuts..." She shook her head, cringing at the mental image her own statement had conjured.  "I sure hope dispatch don’t call Steve and Danny.”

 

“Shouldn’t happen," Chin asserted, sounding far more sure than he actually felt.  Because if the press caught wind of this and the governor got involved...  Still, "They’re on the duty roster as unavailable.”

 

Which brought them right back to the giant elephant they had all been tiptoeing around for the past few months.

 

“Think they’ll sort things out?” 

 

There was a different kind of worry underlying Kono's words, and Chin sighed heavily as he thought back to the acerbically bitter, insult-laden eruption that was the latest spat between their two friends.

 

“I hope so," he hedged, gazing out the window as the small, maneuverable Cruze zoomed south on 83,  leaving the North Shore behind. "They are both _so_ stubborn I just want to smack their heads together sometimes. Why they have to be at each others’ throats like that I do _not_ understand. And yet they’re pretty much always together. Steve could work with someone else if he wanted to, but when Danny’s here…”

 

“Hasn’t it always been like that, though?" Kono spared a quick glance at her cousin before turning her eyes back to the road to overtake a slower moving pickup ahead of them.  "I mean, I distinctly remember them arguing when Five-0 was first set up. Constantly. What’s changed?”

 

Chin tilted his head to the side, mulling over the question.“I’m not sure. I guess it used to have more of an edge of humor. They’re like kids the way they go at it now. I think… I think they’ll be okay. There’s been so much going on I think tensions have built up and they just need the opportunity to really clear the air.”

 

“No divorce then?”  Kono's cheek dimpled, her tone light once more with the good-natured mockery of their all-time-favorite inside joke.

 

“Not if they both engage their brains at the same time," Chin assented, matching her grin tooth for tooth. "Let’s just make sure they aren’t disturbed this weekend, cuz. Whatever happens.”

 

“Deal.”

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KQ Checklist- something supernatural (real or imagined) (tick!)
> 
>  
> 
> A/N Swifter’s father-in-law died a few days ago so her world is in a bit of upheaval all of a sudden, but we will try to keep up the regular postings. Apologies if there are any delays.
> 
>  
> 
> Please review, your feedback keeps us going!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N From Swifters- thank you all for the kind messages about the death of my father-in-law. Much appreciated.
> 
>  
> 
> On with the show…

 

**Chapter 9**

 

Kono screwed up her face and looked at Max in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? That’s disgusting!”

 

Max raised his eyebrows as though taken aback by her reaction. “I suppose one could classify it as ‘morbid’ if one felt the need to categorize," he mused, sounding oddly indignant."Cause of death for both was strangulation, however the post mortem exsanguination and removal of the intestines is entirely fascinating, and will undoubtedly provide us with invaluable insights into the psyche of the killer or killers.”  Max looked positively upbeat by the end of his announcement, his earlier indignation giving way to his usual enthusiasm in the face of all things macabre.

 

Chin and Kono exchanged a glance, then returned their respective gazes to the two dead men laid out side-by-side on the sidewalk outside the imposing glass facade of the Mid-Pacific Conference Center in the Hilton Hawaiian Village.  They were butt-naked and had been cut open from sternum to groin, their empty abdominal cavities bulging open.

 

“Invaluable insights, my ass!”

 

Lou’s booming voice had them turning to see the big man striding purposefully up behind them.

 

“I’ll give you an invaluable insight,” he growled, “Gutting people and dumping them in tourist central? We are dealin’ with someone who is _not_ all there in the head department, if you know what I mean. I’ve just been reviewin’ the security tapes. Our two vics were dumped out the back of a black sedan about 5am. No plates and no good images of the people who did it. I’ve got HPD going through traffic cam footage right now to try to trace their route.”

 

“People? More than one?” said Chin.

 

“Yeah. Five of em. In balaclavas and dark clothin’, every one of 'em, like some goddamn spy-wannabes.”

 

“Five?!” Kono exclaimed. “That sounds less crazed serial killer, more gang warfare… Someone sending a message? Revenge?”

 

Lou shook his head. “Could be. Though I've seen plenty of gang-related clashes in Chicago, and this?  The level of depravity here – doesn't exactly scream gang war to me." He shrugged. "Regardless, the sooner we get IDs on these guys the better.”

 

Chin nodded. “Agreed. AND we need to find the original crime scene. How long they been dead for Max?”

 

Max looked up from where he was working, cocked his head.  “It is hard to be exact, but based on the fact they have clearly passed the state of full rigor…,” he paused, raising a dead arm with his latex-clad hand, then allowing it to flop back to the ground to illustrate his point, “but do not yet display significant signs of decomposition… approximately two days. I would say, however that they were tortured for some considerable time before they finally passed away. Days, possibly.”

 

The three team-mates stood looking down at the grisly corpses.

 

“I’ll tell ya,” said Grover, shaking his head slowly. “Gang war or whatever, whoever did this is nothing short of off-the-scale insane.”

 

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Danny's body shook from head to foot with the effort of every single movement. Every dig with his plank, every stone shifted, every piece of wood moved to one side. He was so, so dizzy. So sick. So _weak._ But he couldn’t stop.  Couldn't afford to give in to that weakness and allow himself to rest.  Not yet.  Not until he achieved _something_ at least.He shook his head, furious with himself, frustrated with his own body's betrayal.

Something moved in his peripheral vision and not for the first time. There was _never_ anything there when he turned. It was his mind playing tricks, it _had_ to be **.** He was so fucking done he was hallucinating.  But each time it felt _real_ , it felt like someone was trying to sneak up behind him. He should ignore it, he _knew_ that.  He shouldn’t look, he shouldn’t waste time and energy, _it wasn’t real._

 

He looked anyway, heart pounding. There _was_ nothing there, nothing living at any rate… but something else caught his eye from the very point that imagined movement had drawn his gaze to.  A glint of metal, shining in the flashlight's beam.  He stepped closer, then bent down and brushed at the dirt with the back of his hand, chuffing out a noise of surprise as the mysterious object came fully into view. It was a compass. Antique. Looked like brass. A nice thing.  He picked it up and flicked it open, frowning when he saw a pristine engraving on the inside.

 

_To KQ, from your loving father_

_26 th January1952._

Danny frowned harder, detective instincts kicking in automatically in spite of the situation. How did it come to be here? Whoever KQ was had to have been devastated to lose such a valuable gift.

 

He shook himself. The compass was no help to them whatsoever **.** He snapped it shut and was about to throw it in the same direction the rest of his spoil had been launched, but then changed his mind at the last minute. The thing had meant something to someone once, and somehow that mattered to him. He turned and threw it the other way instead, so it landed close to Steve.  Danny stood still for a few moments after that in the hope he might hear movement above him, some reaction from his partner to what he had just done, some indication he might have regained consciousness… but there was nothing.  Nothing but Danny and the silence and the dark and the dancing shadows and the _fucking_ eyes watching him, always watching him. Waiting.

 

Blowing out a soft breath, Danny hung his head for a moment then, resigned, turned back to the task at hand.  He grabbed a big stone and straightened up to throw it out of the pit... then gasped.  The backpack. _The backpack!_ It was right there, just peeking out from amongst the debris. He couldn’t believe it! Elated, he grabbed hold of the handles and yanked, pulling it clear of the dirt and rubble. He jerked open the zipper, reached in and pulled out… the smashed remains of a plastic water bottle.

 

He thrust his hand in again. The bottles were _all_ crushed. Everything had been destroyed.

 

His throat tightened with a surge of bitter, powerless tears.  He could almost _hear_ Hesse laughing at him. Of _course_ the fucking bottles would be destroyed. How had that not even occurred to him? How much time had he wasted? Time that Steve just didn’t have…. He growled thickly, hurtling the flattened, rumpled remains of one of the bottles away in a sudden burst of fury.His helpless rage only escalated as the fucking thing bounced harmlessly back down to rest by his feet and he lashed out again, launching the backpack after it.  It crashed into the side of the pit near to the top, dislodging more dirt, more stones, before falling back down towards him because he couldn’t even fucking do _that_ right.

Danny ducked down, covering his face with one arm until the shower of debris slowed, then straightened up carefully when it ceased, coughing and blinking away the dust. His head was spinning. The oppressive atmosphere, those untraceable watching eyes and the weight of failure, of defeat, seemed to crush him.He dropped his eyes, gaze resting blindly on one of the fallen stones as he fought to stay on his feet, struggling to ride out the storm in his mind. And then his eyes widened a fraction as he realized what he was actually looking at.

 

The large round stone that had been dislodged by his mis-throw had come to a rest against his bare toes.  But it wasn’t a stone, not at all.  He bent to pick it up and turned it slowly.  It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It _wouldn’t_ have been a big deal in a normal situation, not really. He’d seen any number of these things before. But this wasn’t a normal situation, because he was down a freaking hole in a concrete prison, his best friend dying a few feet above him. He was shivering with cold, his exhaustion bone deep, and he could literally feel himself weakening with each passing minute. And they had no water. All that _fucking_ effort and they still had no water. 

And, because of all that, it _was_ a fucking big deal, here and now, that he suddenly found himself holding a human skull in his hands, a vision of death, grotesque fixed smile seeming to laugh right along with Hesse at his pathetic attempts to survive.

And, because sometimes life could be utterly shit, at that very moment the flashlight clamped in his aching jaw flickered once, then went out for good.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

Full consciousness crept back to Steve one painful second at a time. He lay there, eyes tight shut, as still as he possibly could, as quietly as he could, just trying not to aggravate the inescapable, screaming pain in his gut. He felt hot and sick and he _knew_ that wasn’t good.  He concentrated hard on his breathing, tried to center himself, to not let his own condition overwhelm him yet again.

 

He had come round once already, had lain staring up at the arched roof of their prison, watching shadows play across it as Danny shifted about with the flashlight, their nauseating movement leaving incomprehensible red tracks across his vision. He had been vaguely aware of what Danny was doing thanks to the sounds emanating from the crater beside him and had turned his head, hoping to see his partner.  When that hadn't worked, he'd tried to raise his head fractionally to get a better angle... and had regretted it instantly. The ill-conceived, albeit slight movement had sent a shockwave of searing, breath-robbing pain through his entire body, and he could do nothing but lie there, rigid and still, drawing in quick convulsive breaths, as his consciousness hovered in wavering indecision, too fragile and loath to resist the seductive pain-free pull of the darkness.

He couldn’t afford to let that happen again.

His own world was beyond fucked. He was horribly wounded, trapped within the ravenous grasp of his growing fever.  And the onslaught of mismatched, illogical, inconceivable images that his beleaguered mind plucked seemingly out of nowhere was becoming more and more intense as time went by. And harder and harder to shut out.  Visions of death and bodies stained red with blood and gore. Horrors he’d seen over the course of his life and horrors he hadn’t. Not yet anyway. They swam before him – an endless succession of twisted, horrifying images, seemingly inescapable like the agony he was in.  But he knew none of it was real, none of it was _now_ , and he fought against them, forcibly blocking them out.Teeth gritted, he boxed them away alongside the pain of his injury, determined to keep them at bay for as long as humanly possible.  He _had_ to try to maintain his sanity because he was worried as hell about Danny.

Not that he could help Danny. Not physically at any rate. He was good for nothing right now. Absolutely nothing. All he could do was lie right where he was and suffer quietly, while his partner battled solo to get them out of this.  He could contribute _nothing_. That knowledge hurt more than the stake in his gut.

But if he could at least find the right words to say at the right time, stay lucid long enough to get through to Danny when it counted, maybe, just maybe he could help his exhausted partner to keep fighting to survive. _Danny_.  This had to be an impossibly terrifying situation for him: injured and trapped, virtually alone – Steve could hardly count himself as company.  And the darkness... Did Hesse know that about Danny?  Did he know how severely claustrophobic Danny was?  The son of a bitch had obviously done at least some research on both of them.  Could he have known? 

He thought back to what Danny had said earlier, to his conviction about being watched, about Hesse having hidden cameras in here as well.  Steve had dismissed the idea at the time thinking it was unlikely, because their chances of surviving the collapse that Hesse had engineered for them were virtually nonexistent.  There was simply no reason for the man to think that they would make it out of the pit alive, no  reason to keep watching them after he had left.   Danny was exhausted, hurting, and battling his phobia demons on top of it all.   There was a chance, a very good chance, that those demons were getting to him, screwing with his perception, his mind.  That's what Steve had thought at the time at least.  But what if it wasn't the case?  What if Danny was right about Hesse watching them after all?  What if the leering bastard was sitting somewhere gloating in the knowledge of the mental torment he was putting his partner through?  Enjoying his anguish, his fear, his pain?

Steve gritted his teeth in helpless fury.  He pictured Danny down there, cold and alone, amidst the half-collapsed walls of a pitch-black crater that could cave in on him once more at any moment.  Pictured his bloodied hands digging through the dirt in a more than likely futile attempt to recover the backpack Steve hadn't even remembered dropping.  He had a sudden, overwhelming need to get his partner out of there, to get him back onto more solid ground.

"Danny," he called out, his voice thinner than a wisp of smoke from a dying cigarette.  "Da–" His voice cut out completely this time, his throat constricting with a sudden urge to cough.  He sucked in quick, short breaths, waiting until the threat of the cough passed, then peeled his eyes open, preparing himself for the nauseating spin of the barely-lit room and the shifting shadows.

 

The bunker wasn’t lit at all. _Fuck!._ The embers of their little fire had long since died - they’d had to let it go out as the enclosed space was steadily filling with suffocating smoke - and the place was in absolute blackness.

“D’ny?” he rasped out, immediately concerned about how Danny would be coping with the dark.But the call was too quiet, inaudible almost, and he cleared his throat, tried again. “Danny?” He fumbled for the box of matches, knew it shouldn't be far away.  He gritted his teeth, forced his muscles to cooperate and managed to strike one.

 

He almost jumped out of his skin.  

Danny was sitting right beside him in the darkness, his eyes squeezed shut.

 

“Danny?” Steve’s voice, full of concern, was softer this time. When there was no response he stretched out a hand towards his partner, but couldn’t quite reach him.  He frowned, realizing Danny was clutching something that reflected the meager light from the match, something made of metal.

 

“H-hey. Wh’cha found?” he tried, cursing his own inability to shift his body six fucking inches.

Danny finally responded, eyes blinking open blearily.  He looked so completely out of it that Steve’s stomach clenched in apprehension.But then Danny seemed to register the burning match, and then Steve’s worried gaze, with bewildered astonishment.  He dropped the shiny object, shuffled closer.

 

Steve squinted sluggishly, struggling to track Danny's movement, but then he felt his cheek being cupped.  He frowned, trying to re-focus on his partner.And the tiny flickering yellow flame was enough to show the desolate expression on Danny's face.  His friend looked utterly exhausted and... numb.  There was certainly fear in his face, but something else too... shock? 

 

Steve realized with a start that Danny’s lips were moving and he grimaced, forcing himself to concentrate so he could take in his words.

“Steve? Shit, you’re awake. I thought… thought you were still unconscious.  How you doin’, huh?”

“M’good,” he responded automatically.

 

“I swear, you say ʻm’goodʼ once more I’m gonna…”

 

Danny’s words trailed off and his face screwed up and then Steve could see as plain as day how close his partner was to losing it.  He opened his mouth to try to find out what was going on, then stopped, gasping as the match burned down to his fingers.

 

They were plunged into darkness once more.

The hand that had been caressing Steve’s cheek went rigid and Steve felt hurriedly for the box of matches, pushed it against Danny’s fingers. Danny’s hand left his face to grab for the box, pausing to linger over Steve’s fingers for a soothing instant.  A moment later Steve heard the scritch-scratch of another match being struck.  The little flame flared to life and Steve’s eyes jerked back to his partner’s face, strained and shadowed in the faint, dancing light.

 

Steve tried to force a smile as Danny met his eye.  He took a couple of breaths, mustering the energy to speak again.  “H-hey. What h’ppend? Y’ok?”

Danny inhaled sharply, the noise perilously close to a sob, then exhaled, apparently regaining control. Still, his lips trembled.  He cleared his throat before he spoke. “Been better.  Pack was crushed. Water bottles are smashed… I'm..."  He hung his head, his posture screaming utter exhaustion."I was just havin’ a break is all.Ten minutes. Just ten.I’m gonna.. I’m gonna go work on the wall now, okay?  M’gonna get you out.  M’gonna do it, yeah?  I'm sorry again, partner.  About the water.  I'm sorry.”

Steve closed his eyes as he absorbed the news.  Life was intent on kicking the pair of them while they were already down. _Figures_ , he thought bitterly.

“You wanna know something else?" Danny announced with an odd giggle, short and sharp. "A fucking cherry on top of this fantastic clusterfuck of a day we've been having so far?  Huh?We’re not alone. I found human remains. Well a skull anyway. Looks like it’s been here a while, too. M’blaming you for that. We can’t go anywhere together without catching a case, right?” Danny was clearly trying for a humorous tone, but it fell flat. They were facing death, and the knowledge that they weren’t the first to do so here… it didn’t help. Only added to the desperate, oppressive atmosphere surrounding them.

Steve blinked his eyes open, frowning as he sought once more to focus on his partner's face. “S-seriously?”

Danny nodded, and Steve could see a glimmer of fear-stained desolation in the pale blue eyes. “Yeah. Least of our worries though, right?  S’ok. We can think about that once we’re outta here, right? Something to look forward to.” He laughed again, a nervous, hollow sound. “I’m gonna... I’m gonna go work on the wall, okay?”

Steve shook his head, because Danny was done, he could _see_ Danny was done. He needed to rest. “S-stay. N-need..break.”

 

“ _Had_ a break. Gotta keep going," Danny countered, his voice hoarse. "The team might take too long to find us, then might _never_... I’ve gotta keep tryin’.”

 

Steve stared at him, considering. “K.... Okay.... Jus’ bit longer.  R-rude… leavin’ me 'lone all the damn... time. ...No manners.” He forced a wry smile for his partner's sake, trying for a light tone to the unsubtle emotional blackmail.

They met each other’s eyes for a moment, their mutual fear for each other reflected clearly back to them in the intent, earnest gazes.But the moment was cut short.The second match burnt out, plunging them right back into darkness.

He heard Danny chuff out a high-pitched laugh in the resulting blackness, then listened as he fumbled to open the box of matches again. But Danny stopped suddenly.  And Steve understood the hesitation – those matches were now their only source of light.  They both knew how many were left. Ten. They had ten matches. That was it.They should save them. It would be the sensible thing to do, no matter how hard it would be for Danny.  For _both_ of them. 

 

Steve felt his partner’s fingers grab at his hand and hold on.   A deep sigh followed.

 

“Well… we had planned to spend some quality time together, right?”  Danny murmured.

 

“S’not what I had in mind.” Steve huffed tiredly and then exhaled deeply, squeezing Danny's hand in a silent show of support.  A fraction of a breath later he felt Danny return the gesture, fast and tight.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KQ checklist - an artefact is discovered (tick)


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Danny let himself rest.

 

Ten minutes, just ten minutes, he had decided, before lying down quietly beside his partner, eyes closed against the darkness and Steve’s hand gripped tight in his own. Steve was still squeezing back - Danny knew he was conscious. He allowed that fact to comfort him.

The ground was cold, the icy chill seeping straight into his bones.  Danny shivered. The only source of heat was Steve’s fevered body yet it felt fundamentally wrong to even think about huddling up to him, using him like that. It was stupid really.

He let his thoughts drift, speculating about the events that had taken place. Wondering about the bunker. What else had happened in that dark, cold room?  His mind fixed on the skull he had found.  Was the rest of the body there somewhere too? Now that the initial shock of finding the thing had passed it wasn’t bothering him so much anymore. Just another day at the office. But he wanted to _know._ Had the person died here? And, if so, under what circumstances?  Was it a violent death? An accidental one?Was the skull tied to the compass at all, or were the two finds coincidental?

He shivered again, dizziness suddenly sweeping over him. He was just so, so fucking tired. He felt his grasp on consciousness drifting and shook his head, bit his lip. He cursed under his breath. He was going to have to get up, keep going, before the ability to get to his feet abandoned him altogether. He was getting progressively weaker and he knew it.

 

His eyes drooped, too heavy for him to hold open any longer, and he dozed off despite himself.  He felt like he was floating, mind playing tricks on him. He felt Hesse watching him, just as Hesse was _always_ watching him, but then something shifted and suddenly it was the _skull_ watching him. Those dead, black voids fixed on his every move, then turned to gaze upon Steve hungrily, waiting for Danny's vigilance to slip so it could take Steve _away..._

 

Steve’s grip on his hand loosened and Danny jerked awake, heart in his mouth. “Babe?” he gasped, fingers spasming desperately to re-establish the connection.   “No.  Stay.  You _stay_ with me.”

 

The hand twitched slightly, the grip returning. “M’here.”

 

Danny blinked his eyes closed for a moment, breathing hard.   _Fuck._ That had seemed _real._ He felt like he could still see the fucking thing. He’d left it down in the pit, it was still there, right? Of course it was, he was being ridiculous. It would be just where he left it. No more sleeping.  No more.  He couldn’t sleep.  Not after that.  Just rest.  Five minutes, just five minutes more rest.  He had to keep himself awake.  Had to keep _both_ of them awake.

 

He started talking before he’d even made a conscious decision to do so. “Hey, buddy. I’m guessing you’da told me, but you don't got anything else I should know about in those magic pockets of yours have you? Floodlights? Satellite phone?”

Steve snorted but didn’t reply at first, and Danny decided he wasn’t going to reply at all. He began to stroke the back of Steve’s hand with his thumb.

 

“Jus’ your badge.”

 

The response was murmured a good minute later and it took Danny a moment to understand what Steve was saying. “You’ve got my badge? Why? How?”

 

“Hesse. Sorry.”

Danny frowned, wondering why Steve would be apologizing for having Danny’s badge in his pocket. He pushed himself up on one elbow and leaned over, then patted Steve down gently, quickly locating the familiar shape. He reached in and his brows knit in confusion as he felt the unexpected jagged metal edge. He pulled out the two pieces, ran a finger along the sharp, broken edges.

“Sorry man.” 

 

Steve's quiet, remorseful voice had him jerking his head back up to stare in the general direction of his partner's face.

“Why you apologizing? It’s just a badge. I can get a new one, right?”

There was a loaded silence, a careful, measured breath.  “You w-want a ...new one?”

Danny froze, cursing the darkness for his inability to see Steve's face at that very moment and thanking it profusely for helping hide his own.  “What? What do you mean?”  Because there was no way Steve could have actually known about his rash decision to abandon the 5-0 ship, no _way_ he could have seen him fill out the–

 

"T-transf'r request... S-saw it on y'r... desk"

 

_Oh, fucking hell…_

****

"s'alright," Steve breathed out softly, misinterpreting his moment of terrified floundering.  "m'fault... I und'r...stand."

 

"No!" Danny exclaimed.  And suddenly he was desperate to explain himself, to make sure there were no misunderstandings left between them.  He leaned closer to where he thought Steve's face might be, stopping short when his nose bumped against the feverishly hot skin of his partner's cheek.  "You don't.  I was upset, yes.  I filled it in, yeah... But I don't think I would have ever submitted it.  People do irrational things when they're upset, right?  That doesn't mean–"

"'spesh...cially if th'r' from  Jers'y." 

 

The slurred attempt at a joke interrupted whatever else Danny was about to say, blew the wind out of his tension-filled sails.  He exhaled loudly, letting his forehead thump gently against Steve's.  "Especially then."

 

Steve fell silent again, his soft, irregular breaths tickling Danny's skin.

 

Danny squeezed his eyes shut, tight, as he gathered his thoughts.  He needed to try make things right.  _Now._ He lay back down, his shoulder touching Steve’s.  “I’m sorry.”

“F’what?” The confusion was clear in the weak, delayed response.

 

“The chair. The fucking chair. I’m sorry I made such a big deal about the chair.”

 

There was a pause as Steve seemed to work out what the hell he was talking about.  A heavy sigh followed, then, "Was m'fault...  Sh'dn't've pushed."

 

Danny huffed, nodding his agreement into the uncaring blackness.   "As much as I appreciate your sudden flash of self-awareness, babe, pushing buttons is something of a favorite pastime for you.  For both of us, in fact.  I should know that by now.  And I really shouldn't have reacted the way I did."

The hand cradled in Danny's grasp shifted feebly, pulling away.  "Went too far," Steve countered, his voice laden with a good dose of dejection.  "Push'd you t'... to leave."

They fell silent again, breathing each other's air in quiet, broken sync, Danny's raging emotions rendering his breaths every bit as unsteady and shallow as Steve's.

 

“No," Danny decided finally. **"** No. It’s not you. Not _just_ you. I know things have changed between us and it ain’t just down to you. I’ve been… distant. And crabby as hell. I’ve been pushing you away too, I guess. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry I get mad at you, I'm sorry I say mean shit. My head's a fucking mess, you know, between Charlie and Matty and all the crap that just keeps on raining down on us. I guess I’ve been taking it out on you. Maybe," he hedged and pinched his lips together as he sought to bring some semblance of order to the jumbled rush of thoughts that swirled in his tired mind.  "I’m just… I just need you to know I’m sorry yeah? But it's... it's your ‘relationship dominance’ thing - it drives me nuts you know.  You're like... you treat me like I’m some stupid rookie, or a freaking kid, sometimes! I mean I’ve been doing this job for 16 years now. A little respect in the workplace would be nice. And, I mean, it’s not just the chair, it’s everything! Where we eat, _what_ I eat, where I live, what we watch on TV. And the driving of course. I mean, come on, Steve, I know you’re a control freak but you don’t treat anyone else like that, do you?” Danny paused to take a breath, poised to go on, then stopped himself because what the fuck was he doing? He had set out to apologize and now he was ranting, going over the same old ground again.

Steve snorted softly beside him. “W’rst apology... ev’r.”

“Fuck! I’m _sorry._ I am. Just, that stuff drives me crazy, it does… but I guess it’s part of who you are, right? And I love the rest of who you are, I _do_. So I should just shut the hell up and deal, right?”

“No..."  There was an odd hesitation in Steve's voice, an awed, reluctant realization. "No, y’r right. But…”

“But what?”

 

“I think I do it with Mary too.”

 

Danny frowned, considering that snippet of information. Steve maybe had a point! Still... “So you rate me alongside your periodically less-than-stable sister in terms of my ability to make basic decisions about my own life? I’m pretty sure I should be insulted, buddy.”

“N-nah," Steve  denied around a shuddered, gasping breath, "Jus’... y’r the... people who mean the m-most to me. ...Tryin’ to look out for you I guess.” He snorted in a self-derisory way. “Pr’tty fucked... up, huh?”

Danny blinked against the darkness, choked up yet again. That explanation for Steve’s infuriating control freakery had never occurred to him, not for a moment. Yet it kind of made sense in a seriously twisted, emotionally constipated way... the concept of showing love by trying to control every detail of someone's life.  A way that was so completely and utterly Steve.  _Fuck_.

 

“M’sorry.” Steve started to speak again when Danny failed to find the words to respond to that little revelation. “s-sorry I've b'n such a... d-dick lately... at th' resort and... for b... blowing up at you... the... stuff I said... I didn't... didn't mean it.  I jus'... I f-felt like I was l-losing you... and I got so scared and... I know… know you d-don’t ... need my f-f'ck'd up ...shit in 'ur... l-life, I... kn'w it... drives you... crazy.  I d'n’t... kn-now... why I…”

 

"No. Stop.  I _do_ need you, I _do_ ," Danny insisted, his earnest words thick with visceral, naked emotion.  "I need you _so_ fucking much! You're a goddamn maniac with severe control issues, but I can't imagine you being any other way.  And I can't imagine my life without you in it, Steve.  You turned everything around for me when you invited yourself into my life.  It was empty apart from Grace. _You_ gave me a family here. You’re a brother to me. You have to know that.  I _need_ you to know that."

Silence greeted his heartfelt declaration, Steve's breaths merely growing just a tad shallower in response to his words. 

 

"Steve?" he prodded, leaning back up on his elbow, peering uselessly at the night-washed face below him.

 

"You don't... regret it then?"

The words were so quiet that if Danny hadn't still been leaning close enough to Steve to get his nose scratched by the man's stubble, he would have missed them.  He frowned. "Regret what?"

 

"Us... be'ng partn'rs... fr'nds."

 

Danny swallowed dryly, pushing down a lump so sharp and bitter, it felt like it scraped his throat raw."Never," he vowed hoarsely, raising his other hand to reach blindly for his partner's cheek.  "Not ever," he repeated, resisting the urge to physically shake the idiot he held within his shaking grasp.  He felt the skin underneath his palm move slightly, the muscles there stretching in a weak smile.

"s'good..." 

 

“I regret that we drifted apart. I regret that for sure. But that shit ain't happening anymore. It's done with.  Over."

“Yeah," Steve huffed out a humorless laugh.  "Nearly. Cause m’dying.”

 

“ _Shut up!_ " Danny barely managed to suppress a helpless growl."No. Because… Okay, I have no idea. I mean, you’re still a total control freak, even if it does appear to be for a disturbingly sweet reason.  Maybe.  Possibly.  And that’s always gonna drive me insane. And I’m… I talk, alright?  I say shit. I can’t stop myself sometimes.  But that’s always been the case. And even if we say we’re gonna make an effort, it’s never gonna stick, is it? We’re set in our ways. We are who we are. But it didn’t used to matter, did it? What the hell changed, Steve?”

****

He felt Steve shrug minutely, heard his breath hitch on a pained gasp in response to the movement.

“Rut?" the weak voice offered quietly, the effort to force out the words straining them, making them crack and splinter like brittle sheets of glass. "T-too much other... shit goin’on. Matt... Cath... Mom... Cha...Charlie...  Jus’… our marriage getting old.”

****

“That’s…," Danny snorted in rueful agreement.  Well, at least he and Captain Obvious were on the same page here. "...enormously helpful, Steven.  Thank you.  So what do we do, huh, Dr. Freud?  How do we sort this thing out between us? Other than one of us dyin’, which seems kinda extreme, if you know what I mean.”

****

There was another protracted silence and Danny began to worry that Steve had fallen unconscious again, when his friend spoke up, his words whisper thin.  “Jus’ f-focus on… im-important bit.”

****

“Important bit?"  Danny cocked an eyebrow at that even though Steve couldn't see him.  "Oh, you mean the cheesy ‘you drive me crazy but I love you and I’ll always have your back and those are the things that matter’ important bit?”

****

“Yep,” came the breezy response.

****

“Again, all very true but not new. If we didn’t _both_ agree on that - without ever having talked about it, clearly - we’d have killed each other by now. We’re terrible at this, you know that? You especially.” There was a pause, then a sob split the darkness, and Danny realized with a shock that it had come from _him_.

 

Steve's hand fumbled for his again, a worried “D’ny?” spilling forth into the blinding darkness between them.

****

Danny’s emotions had taken on a mind of their own, and suddenly he was laughing – a watery, strained laugh that reeked of desperation. “Know what though? We _are_ okay, you and I.”

****

“Okay…” murmured Steve, sounding utterly confused.

****

Danny turned his head to the side, wiped his face on his shoulder, leaving wet traces of tears he hadn’t noticed falling on his bare skin, then he pressed his face once more against Steve’s cheek.  “We're okay, because... because if you’re right, Mr Negative," he added hoarsely, his voice strained to the point of breaking, "if you… _fuck …_  if you die and somehow… somehow I live it’s gonna fucking kill me.”

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

"So, you’ve got some information for us, Big Guy?" Chin leaned against the counter of Kamekona's brightly painted shrimp truck, instantly regretting the closeness as his eyes and throat prickled with the overwhelming aroma of garlic and red pepper that wafted toward him from the inside.  He coughed and pulled back slightly, shooting a mockingly murderous glare at Kono who sniggered quietly at his reaction.

 

They had been on the way back to the Palace, when the CI’s phone call with a promise of intel that couldn’t wait had caused them to divert.

 

Kamekona held up his hand in a universal 'wait' gesture and leaned backwards and to the side to holler into the smoke-filled bowels of the truck for his cousin Flippa to take over.  The truck creaked and wobbled as its two massive occupants manoeuvred around each other to trade places by the window.  A few moments later Kamekona was already outside, cringing in obvious disapproval at whatever his cousin was doing.

 

"Kame?" Chin prodded, and the big man pursed his lips with a nod of acknowledgment and closed the distance between them.

 

"I overheard some chatter," he began, throwing furtive looks around him as if expecting someone to eavesdrop on their conversation at any moment.  "And you ain’t gonna like it."

 

Chin exchanged a glance with Kono.  “Try us, brah.”

 

“Dem bodies at the Hilton? Former associates of Victor Hesse.”

 

"Hesse?"  Chin swallowed tightly, his hand rising unconsciously to his neck as a flood of unpleasant memories washed over him in a flash of broken Technicolor: of him sweating and swaying on his knees on a sun-baked pavement in front of the 5-0 headquarters, a bomb collar strapped around his neck in a deadly unmovable vise; of Victor's mocking voice, promising him a gruesome, explosive end; of his team's faces, dark with fear and worry...

 

“Okay." Kono's hand brushed his arm, jerking him back to the present.  "You got names for them?”

 

“I do," the big man nodded vigorously, "but dere’s more. Dey went legit way back, went into da building game. Dunno why, but it caused bad blood wiv Hesse.”

 

“That’s great background, Kame, could be useful. But I’m thinking given Hesse has been dead for a few years this is probably not connected.” He trailed off as the larger man stepped closer still, his face creased with uncharacteristic concern.

"Dere's more," he all but hissed, his gaze once again darting around the parking lot in front of the shrimp truck before returning to settle on the two 5-0 officers with the intensity that took them aback.  "Word is  dere’s a new player in town. De player... his name is Hesse too.  Aiden Hesse. I dunno if it was him. But… coincidence is a big word, get my drift?"

The two cops stared at him, their faces dark with growing apprehension.

"Is he related to Victor?" Kono asked, shooting a quick, concerned glance at her cousin.

 

Kamekona shrugged, his face scrunching up in grim sympathy.  "I dunno. But word is da man looks just like him.”

 

Somehow Chin managed to find his voice.  "You did the right thing, Kame," he murmured sincerely, clasping the big man on the shoulder.  "Mahalo."

 

The cousins exchanged a tense, worried glance as they walked away.

"If this guy is really Hesse’s son, _here_ … if there's _any_ chance of that," Kono spoke up, echoing Chin’s thoughts.  "We're gonna have to try to contact Steve and Danny.  They need to know."

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

Danny sat, still and silent, his bare back pressed up against the cold bunker wall, his unconscious partner cradled gently and securely in his arms. He felt like he was on guard and he wasn’t sure who from.

****

He had been up working on the blocks for what had seemed like hours. Could have _been_ hours **.** He had no idea. He had been going by touch, eyes tight shut, feeling as best as he could with his wadded hands. Nothing he’d tried worked; stones, the metal rod he’d used to burn his best friend with, a tiny fragment of glass, his own shredded fingernails. The gap between the blocks simply wasn’t wide enough, he just couldn’t seem to make enough of an impression.

 

He’d lit one of the precious matches, convinced he must have achieved more than what he could feel through the cloth.  He had stared unblinking at the fruits of his labor, his mouth open in stunned disbelief. He’d succeeded in gouging some cement from around one of the blocks high in what used to be the door, but only to a depth of less than an inch and the fucking thing hadn’t loosened at all.

 

Danny had had to stop at that point before he started punching walls again. To give himself a moment to recapture his sanity, to try to recharge his failing body.Just another ten minute break, that was all. Check on Steve, sit down. Rest.

 

And so now he sat, staring into the blackness, feeling the familiar steady gaze watching him from the other side of the room. It had taken on a life of its own in his mind somewhere along the way. Had become a third presence in the black space around them. He imagined Hesse, crouched on the other side of the bunker, observing. Smiling, lizard like, at every display of weakness, every indication of the pain he was causing them. Sick anticipation rising as death stepped ever closer to them both. Danny hated him. He closed his eyes, feeling powerless, sensing defeat creeping up on him. 

And flung them open an instant later when the image of the skull from his dream appeared suddenly before him in his mind's eye, making him gasp in horror.An icy chill ran through his body as a new idea struck him.  What if it wasn’t Hesse at all?  What if it was something else?  What if it was the poor bastard whose skull Danny had found, haunting the shadows of the bunker, lost and furious?Danny laughed shakily at the idea, the sound echoing round and round the small building interior until it sounded like someone was laughing right back at him. Maybe someone was. He snapped his mouth shut, hard, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up at the frightening absurdity of the notion. He sat up, fumbling frantically for the box of matches.  He struck another one.

 

He stared at the flame for a few seconds, trying to find some reassurance in its flickering glow before holding the match out and peering into the dancing shadows. Nothing. He couldn’t see _anything._ But the feeling remained as strong as ever. He really was going crazy. Losing his fucking mind. He stared at the match he’d just wasted, watching the flickering flame as it slipped ever closer to his fingers. Seven left.  His gaze slid to the end of the stake protruding from Steve’s abdomen. He had to be dreaming. Nothing felt real. None of this could be real. It was insane.

The match burned out.

He shook his head slightly as the darkness enveloped them again, forcing himself to focus, to switch his attention back to the sound of his brother's harsh, labored breaths.He was damn sure those breaths were becoming shallower and more rapid, as if Steve was working overtime trying to draw enough oxygen into his lungs.Danny reached out and felt for Steve’s forehead.  Damn.  The skin there felt incredibly hot to the touch and was now slick with sweat **.** He moved his hand, pressed two fingers to Steve’s neck. Steve’s pulse was way too fast.  The infection had set in with a vengeance despite the hideous process of cauterization he’d put Steve though.

They needed to be found. Now.    

 

Overcome by the need to do _something,_ Danny bit his lip, shoving the pain and exhaustion to the back of his mind with an almost savage fury, and shifted, carefully sliding his partner down to the floor so he could get back up.  He had to get back to Hesse's wall.He had to keep _trying_ to get them out.

"D'nny?"

 

Steve's wheezed out call of his name startled him, made him halt.  He slid his right hand down the filthy material of Steve's shirt until it rested over the man's heart.  He let his hand linger there, drawing a measure of comfort in the rapid movement of his brother's chest underneath his palm, trying not to think about just how rapid that movement was.  “It's okay. It's okay.  I'm here, I'm right here.  Just gonna... gonna stretch my legs a bit.  Gotta get back to Hesse’s freaking wall.”

“Yeah.” Steve said softly, snorting with wistful mirth, and then he moaned oh so weakly. “Stay..." And there was an uncharacteristic plea in the soft, pained voice.  "F’r bit longer.”

Danny swallowed tightly against an impossibly dry throat, fighting to push down a steadily rising lump of fear.The trembling fingers of his right hand curled inward to fist and crumple the material underneath, suddenly desperate to hold on.  He blew out a long, shaky breath, reached out with his free hand to grab a near-crushing hold of Steve's.

“Okay. You… you just hang on for me, yeah?  Like you said, the team are gonna find us. They will. You’ve just gotta hang on for me, alright? I’m not gonna lose you, not now we’ve agreed we don’t hate each other. Not gonna happen. Brothers, yeah?” Danny clamped his mouth shut as he heard his own voice begin to break.

 

“Mm tryin’” Steve mumbled, his limp fingers twitching feebly within Danny's grasp.

 

The lump in Danny’s throat grew.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N  Hey, we've actually exhausted KQ's checklist!!!! Wow. Think she's pleased with us? A one shot- that's what we thought we were gonna do when we agreed to write this on 26th January- yes, nearly 3 months we've been at this, KQ!!!
> 
>    
> Anyhoo, please review, let us know what you thought, good bad or indifferent. 


	11. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER 11**

Steve’s final breath rattled in his chest, then he fell deathly still in Danny’s arms.

 

“Steve? Steve. No. Please.” Danny rasped, clutching his shirt, shaking him bodily. “ _Please_.”

Nothing. There was no movement, no response. Steve’s body, limp and heavy, suddenly felt cold and stiff, like he’d been dead for a day. Danny sobbed hard, shaking his head in denial, wrapping his arms around his partner and holding him tight. But then the solid shape he held seemed to melt, becoming ephemeral in the blink of an eye.

“No!” Danny cried out, fighting to hold onto him, fighting to keep him there because he was _not_ ready to let a second brother go.But there was nothing there.  He was clutching at thin air.  Steve was gone, evaporated in the blackness leaving Danny truly alone.  Even as he gasped in horror at the inexplicable loss, the darkness seemed to thicken around him, heavy and palpable, its cold, ebony presence folding over him like a viscous, oversized blanket, smothering, suffocating, dragging him down into a senseless, pitch-black void.

“No. _No_!” he yelled, fighting against the stifling fabric of blackness, struggling to push himself to his feet.  He managed, finally, and stood there on trembling legs, turning erratically, arms stretched out as he tried to feel for Steve in the darkness.Then he froze. He could hear footsteps coming towards him but he couldn’t see who it was and now he _couldn’t move_. He was rooted to the spot, he couldn’t shift away, couldn’t do anything.  He opened his mouth to yell again but nothing came out.

The footsteps came closer and it was gonna be Hesse, it _had_ to be Hesse, here to finish the job. A figure wove itself out of the velvety blackness, seemingly illuminated by a light from within.  Danny blinked in surprise. It wasn’t Hesse at all. It was a boy and Danny knew him already, knew the disheveled red hair, the wide blue eyes, the achingly lonely, sad expression. He’d seen him before.

The boy held a hand out to Danny and his mouth was moving, he was speaking, pleading. But his words were inaudible, lost in the ether. Then the boy’s face changed and Danny realized he’d seen that happen before as well - the pale features morphing into someone different, into Steve!  But this time Steve wasn’t angry or screaming. This time he was silent and pasty white and still. Dead. He was dead.

Danny jerked awake, the scream of ‘No’ dying on his lips, heart pounding with terror **.**

He tightened his fingers and whined in utter relief when he felt solid flesh beneath them.  Steve’s hand, Steve’s hot forehead.  He was alive.  It was just another fucking dream!  Breathing hard, he dipped his head, resting his cheek against Steve’s sweaty brow as he tried to calm himself down.

But it was easier said than done. His eyes were shut but the nothing he could see seemed to swim around him, twisting and coiling in a sickening, nauseating rhythm. He felt horribly thirsty, horribly sick, and the pain his mind had suppressed for so long had reawakened somewhere along the way. Every part of his body seemed to be screaming, howling in agony.His heartbeat thumped rapidly, echoing around his aching head like a bass drum. Maybe he had a nice slow brain bleed. Maybe the pressure would build until he passed out, slept the true sleep of the dead.

 

He shook that aching head. Nothing felt real, or solid, or true. He tightened his arms around Steve again, suddenly terrified he was still dreaming, that Steve really _was_ gone. His eyes were shut and he kept them like that, convinced that if he opened them up he would see the red-haired boy standing over him, glowing eerily like a creepy, ghoulish monster from a fucking Scooby Doo cartoon.

 

“It’s not real, not real, not real,” he murmured, caught up in the sudden fervent hope that _none_ of it was real, that he was trapped in a horrible, twisted dream, or in a fucking coma in some hospital bed.

 

He shifted, raised his head a fraction and moved it so his mouth rested over Steve's forehead then placed a gentle kiss on the fever-racked skin.He inhaled deeply, stabbing pain from his ribs the price he paid for the familiar, grounding scent of his friend.

 

Facts ticked slowly through Danny’s head as he fought to center himself.  The watching eyes and the strange boy and the skull and _Steve_ dying quietly in his arms.Then he laughed to himself. Of course. It all made sense. It was a haunted bunker. _That_ was it. The boy was the ghost. The skull was the boy. The boy was watching them from the shadows. It wasn’t Hesse at all who’d been setting the hairs on the back of his neck on end hour after hour after hour. It was a ghost. It was watching them as they struggled, knowing they were going to die. Waiting to…what?  Take them away? Give them a fucking guided tour of the afterlife? Or what? Danny laughed again, his own mind’s ridiculous ramblings suddenly seeming absolutely fucking hilarious to him.

Then he shrugged. The voyeuristic boy ghost concept was way preferable to the idea of being watched and mocked by Aiden Hesse as the utter bastard sat, feet up, in some luxury pad drinking 20 year old malt whiskey. Maybe he should just go with it. Let it be true. What was the harm? One thing off his list of worries.

He laughed again, face bumping softly against Steve’s.

 

Then Danny grimaced, grief punching through to the surface of his wavering sanity, because Steve felt solid and real. What was happening to them was _real_. And Steve's condition was getting worse, slowly, painfully, like the gradual wilting of a healthy tree infested by a wood borer, destroyed from the inside out. He was drifting, alternating between briefer and briefer moments of lucidity and restless, nightmare-plagued bouts of oblivion that had him thrashing feebly within Danny's grasp, crying out in pain and distress.

And Danny’s guilt - that was real too. His perception of his complete, irreversible failures as simply unforgiveable.He’d been caught unawares, let himself get kidnapped. It was his fault Steve had been entrapped, had been horribly injured. He’d failed to prevent all that. He’d failed to get Steve water. He’d failed to get them out of the bunker before Steve got as sick as he was.  And what was he doing right now?  Letting himself rest, letting himself think, wasting time when he should be getting them the hell out of there.He'd failed his partner miserably every step of the way.

He would no doubt fail to get them out.Chin and Kono and Lou would find them eventually, Danny was damn sure of that. They would come, armed with guns and sledgehammers, blast their way inside.   He could almost picture them bursting through that wall and finding the two partners right there, just as they were. Steve in Danny’s arms, but both men long dead. _Fuck._ He didn’t want the team to see that. They’d all suffered enough. Them and… _Grace. Jesus._

****

Danny sobbed once, before catching hold of himself.

 

He opened his eyes, taking in the watchful darkness, then shivered violently. It felt like he was staring at the boy he couldn’t see who was staring right back at him.  He closed his eyes again, breaths coming thick and fast as he shook, and pressed his forehead back against Steve’s.

 

“D’nny?...  Y-you... ‘kay?”  The words, gasped out with supreme effort, were so unexpected that Danny jumped, jerking upright. A pained moan ensued and Danny winced with an awful realization of how his involuntary, rough movement must have hurt his friend.

“M’good,” he responded shakily, stroking the SEAL's cheek by way of apology, "just... just a little cold."

 

Steve was silent for a long time, his weak, shallow breaths – the only sound breaking up the quiet between them.  "Boots," he managed finally, drawing a frown of confusion from Danny.

"What?"

 

"M'boots..."  He heard Steve swallow thickly and suck in another ragged breath before continuing.  "Off... take them... off."

Danny's frown deepened.  "Why?  They hurting you?" 

 

He felt Steve's head move slightly across his thigh in denial.  "F-f'r you...," the SEAL murmured, his voice fading with exhausted effort.  "T-take... f'r you..."

Danny blinked, his mouth going dry as the realization of what Steve was trying to tell him hit him full force.  "You... you... are you fucking nuts?" he exclaimed finally, struggling to keep his frayed emotions under control, lest he should bolt from where he was sitting and hurt his friend even more.   "Why would I do that, huh?"

 

"You're... cold," came a faint response.

Danny huffed out a breath that felt suspiciously close to a sob.  "I'm fine, alright?  I'm okay.  You just..."  He paused, choking on another watery exhale.  "Don't worry about me, okay? Just... just keep breathing, yeah?"

 

"Boots... h-help you... warm... Clo-clothes too"

"Exactly why _you_ should keep them."

 

Steve chuckled, soft and breathless.  "Won't be... need'n 'em much... long'r"

Danny felt himself grow even colder at that.  "Steve–"

 

“They’ll... come.  You need t'... ke...keep warm till they... do”

"I _know_ they'll come," Danny intoned heatedly.  "That's why you can't give up now.  You hear me, Steve?" He hugged the man tighter, fighting the urge to shake him.  "You can't give up!"  He was on the verge of tears now, Steve's calm acceptance of the end making his chest tight with growing despair.

He felt Steve shift slightly in his grasp, felt his brother's clammy hand cover his. “Not y'ur... fault.”

Tears did spill forth at that simple assertion, and Danny choked out a sob, stroking Steve’s cheek again. He didn't want this to be it. This couldn’t be the end.  This felt like Steve was trying to say ‘goodbye’ and he couldn't let him do that.  He just couldn’t. 

 

Danny cleared his throat, wincing at the pain that simple action caused. “F-forget about that.   _Please_.  Please can we talk about something else?  Huh?Hey, you know any kids with red hair? I keep dreamin’ about this boy. About 10 maybe, with the brightest red hair. He looks helluva familiar but I can’t place him. Friend of Gracie’s maybe, someone I’ve forgotten?” He opened his mouth to share his ghost theory, but clamped it tight shut again. He knew how it would sound. Knew that it would be pretty much admitting out loud that he had kinda lost it. And Steve didn’t need to know that. He picked a different direction, went off at a tangent. “M’gonna kick Chin’s ass when they get here for taking so damn long. Not Kono’s. She’d kick mine, right? And Lou has way too much padding. Chin, man - he’s taking the fall, he…”

Steve squeezed his hand lightly, bringing his stumbling flow of words, his attempt at deflection, to a stop.  “ _Not_ y'ur fault. ...All on Hesse. Yeah?”

“Steve...,” he pleaded.  He felt his brother slipping away from him and he desperately, desperately needed for him to hang on.  He knew it was entirely unfair of him.  Steve was in horrible, unimaginable pain and Danny was asking him to prolong that agony for purely selfish reasons.  Because Danny couldn't stand the thought of losing Steve, of Steve leaving him all alone in this cold, empty darkness.  He just couldn't.

“Danny, I–”

 

“No!" He shook his head, denying Steve the chance to say what he dreaded would be the words of apology, words of goodbye. He began to speak again, hurriedly, subject hopping out of desperation **.** "Well, anyway, that kid. I can’t think of any kids with red hair. You know any kids with red hair?”

There was a protracted silence.

 

“Steve?”

 

A response came, horribly weak. “Love you.”

“Steve, I know you do, and you know I feel the same, but you’re saying these things like they’re final declarations and this isn’t… You’re not… You... you can't..." He trailed off, the lump in his throat choking him, cutting off his breath.

Steve said something back, some short response… but the words were slurred and they made no sense.

 

“Steve?” Danny tightened his grip on his partner.

There was a sudden shift in Steve’s breathing. It had been rapid, but even and controlled but now those breaths were horribly shallow and so fast, like he just couldn’t get enough air.An instant later Steve's hand slipped limply from where it lay atop of Danny's and Danny heard it thump weakly against the ground.

“Steve?” There was a pitiful, pleading note in Danny’s voice now.

 

There was no reply. And Danny finally understood what it was that Steve had murmured to him moments ago: a soft admission of defeat, a susurration of regret. "M'sorry."

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

“Well, at least we can reunite our two vics with their insides, right?” Chin said with a grim smile.

 

Grover shook his head, shooting Chin a look of disgust. He cast his eyes around the skeletal building, gaze following the scaffolding from the base of the wall upwards. He narrowed his eyes and pointed skywards. “Is that intestine up _there_ too?”

 

Chin grimaced. “This place is like a slaughterhouse. Crime lab are on their way. There’s no doubt this is the primary crime scene though based on the quantity of pooled blood and the spatter on the walls alone. Now, the construction manager told HPD that this building site has been shut down for over a week since funds were withdrawn by a major investor. Whoever did this had plenty of time to play with the vics here undisturbed. Duke said the manager also reported that some equipment is missing, although he can’t say if that happened at the same time. Could be unconnected. Generator, bags of cement, shovels, wheelbarrows, timber. That kind of thing.”

 

Grover pinched his nose for a moment. “OK, so let me get this straight… our vics, Darren…”

 

“Asher.” Chin supplied.

 

“Okay, Darren Asher and Keoki Kama, both former associates of Victor Hesse… right? Who then had a beef with him, about which we know… nothing?”  Grover raised a doubtful eyebrow.

 

Chin nodded. “Yes, according to Kame and his ID’s were spot on.”

 

Grover hummed in agreement.  “Okay, so this was Asher and Kama’s building site. The hotel their company was constructing up until their investor pulled out last week. And was there a reason for this investor pulling out?”

 

“According to HPD he’s saying he received threatening phone calls. It was becoming too much of a hassle, he moved his investment over to a different hotel site. But get this… those phone calls - the man had an Irish accent.  Coincidence?”

 

Grover shook his head and shrugged.“So a man who _may_ be Hesse’s son is in town," he reiterated, his left arm hugging his chest, the fingers of his right one tapping pensively against his lips. "And Asher and Kama lose an investor so their site is shut down, then they get tortured and killed at the conveniently abandoned site. Then dumped in tourist central? Suppose it was Hesse… why would he even do that? Why not just shoot 'em in the head if he was pissed at how things went down between them and his old man? Why torture them on their own building site? Why dump them somewhere else? Why not leave them here?" He turned, looking questioningly at his teammate who responded with a light shrug.  "I mean Chin... there’s some serious crazy floating about in the decision making processes going on here. It’s… risky. Over the top. Theatrical, that’s what it is. We got any indication that this guy is actually batshit insane?"  He turned, looking questioningly at his teammate, deadly serious.

 

Chin responded with a light shrug. “We just don’t know. You’re dead right about all of that… I just don’t have any answers.  It could be Hesse isn’t connected. It could be these guys have just interrupted a robbery and paid for it in a big way but…”

“Yeah, but robbers wouldn’t have tied 'em up and tortured them for days. They would have shot and run.  It wasn’t even a high value crime, probably just opportunistic. No, this was someone trying to get information or this is someone seriously sick out for revenge.”

“Exactly. So right now the Hesse connection is our best lead.”

Lou let out a long sigh. "Still, why these guys? Just because they pissed off his old man? I just don’t buy that. I mean, I get that Victor Hesse was not the most popular kid on the block, but if his son starts going around killing people he had issues with he’s gonna have a long, long list. You guys could even be on it. I mean Hesse and McGarrett had history, right? Steve hunted him into the ground. If anyone would make the list…”

 

Grover ground to a halt, and he and Chin exchanged horrified looks, realization kicking in at the exact same moment.

 

“They didn’t answer their cells. But that doesn’t mean…,” started Lou.

 

“No. They were going hiking. They’ll just be out of range. Right?” Chin agreed, the concern in his face belying his words.

 

Grover nodded, eyes wide with worry.

 

Chin whipped out his cell and dialed Kono, flicking it onto loudspeaker as she answered. “Hey cuz.”

 

She rattled on before Chin had the chance to speak. “Chin- I just got a possible connection between Hesse and the conference center at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. HPD have been interviewing the cleaning staff who found the bodies. One of the cleaning crew was in prison with Hesse and they apparently had ‘issues’ in Halawa. He had heard about this Aiden Hesse, that he was on the island, and he’s freaking out, he’s convinced those bodies were dumped where they were as a message to him. He’s convinced Hesse is coming to get him.”

Chin glanced at Grover. “Why does he think that, cuz?”

 

“He’s the keyholder for the crew. He opens up that office every day. It was always gonna be him that found those bodies and he’s convinced Hesse dumped them there as a message to him specifically.”

Chin drew his eyebrows together, nodding pensively. “You know Kono, he might just be right. Get Duke to put a protective detail on him. Listen, did you try Steve and Danny again?”

 

“Yeah, still straight to voicemail. You don’t think…”  There was a worried waver in her voice, and Chin hurried to reassure her, striving for calm he himself was trying very hard to maintain.

 

“We don’t know anything, but we need to check up on them.  If Aiden Hesse really is here on some crazed vendetta….”  He didn't need to elaborate, the terrifying implication was clear enough.

 

They could hear Kono's fingers tapping away even as Chin was still speaking, could picture her working the Tech Table, hands moving rapidly.  "I'm gonna try to ping the location of their phones," she said, voice tight with concentration.

 

Lou sighed.  "Man, I never thought I’d say this, but I really hope they’re just yellin’ at each other in the freaking woods somewhere. When those two really go at it, I swear they wouldn’t see a freaking articulated truck driving right at 'em. I swear sometimes they wouldn’t notice… "

 

 

“Guys!" There was urgency in Kono's voice that interrupted his tirade, grinding whatever else he was about to say to a halt. "Danny's cell is switched off. Last location it pinged at… his house! And...” She clicked another button. “Steve’s… pinged at _his_ house.  That's... something's not right.Even if they’re out of range now, their phones should have pinged while they were driving to the hiking trail, right? They wouldn’t just switch 'em off. Maybe they didn’t take 'em…” she suggested doubtfully.

 

Lou blinked at that, his forehead rippling in confusion.  “Why the hell would they not take their cells?”

 

“They wouldn't," Chin shook his head, a deep frown creasing his features.  "I mean, there’s no reason. Maybe they did fall out. Maybe they came back early.”

 

“So why aren’t their cells on?” Kono said, voice quiet, subdued.

 

"What about their vehicles?" Chin's suggestion garnered nary a second of hesitation and Kono's fingers were back on the keys, the soft, rapid clicks coming clear over the line.

 

"The Camaro is... at the apartment," she reported an instant later.  "And Steve's truck..."  She trailed off, plugging away at the keys.  "It's showing as parked on a service road near the Kaena Point."

 

"Well, isn't that a good thing?" Lou chimed in again, leaning closer to the display of Chin's cell as if Kono could see him.  "That fits with the hike they were goin’ on."

 

Kono hummed uncertainly.  "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure Steve didn't mention Kaena.  And even if that was his plan, there's a road that dead ends right at the start of the trail there.  Anyone planning on hiking up to the Kaena Point would park further up the road. There are parking areas specifically for that purpose.  But where the Silverado is now...," she trailed off, her voice filled with concern.  "There's nothing here.  There'd be no reason for Steve to leave the truck here."  She blew out a long, unsteady breath and she must have brought the phone closer to her lips because her next words, though whispered, sounded loud and clear.  "I’m getting a bad feeling about this, guys."

 

“I’m with you," Chin agreed simply.  He bit his lip as he mulled over their next course of action.  "Right, Lou, you head over to Steve's, see if you can find anything amiss, or if there’s any indication of where exactly he was planning on taking Danny. We'll request an HPD unit to go check out Danny's apartment too.  Kono, you head over here to pick me up. I’ll brief the crime scene guys and when you get here we’ll head out to Kaena.  Maybe Steve's truck can tell us more."

 

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Danny staggered the familiar route back down the stairs to Steve on autopilot, no longer even needing to feel his way in the dark.

 

At the bottom of the steps he dropped to his knees, legs simply unable to support him, and crawled shakily to his partner. He felt the boy moving behind him, eyes on his back, cold breath on his neck. He didn’t even try to berate himself for being insane any more. He knew on some level that the feeling of being watched and the dreams, or hallucinations, or whatever, he’d had were getting fucked up in his mind, confused with reality. But reality had become a transient concept.

It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. Just two things remained that mattered in Danny’s world - scraping at the wall and staying with Steve. And the fact he couldn’t rip himself in two and fulfill both of these obligations at the same time was tearing at his soul.

And there was a new fear now. That Steve would slip away while he was at the top of those stairs. That Steve would die alone.  That Danny would fail his brother even in this one final act – fail to stay by Steve's side in the last moments of his life.  He couldn't fail in that.  Steve shouldn’t die alone. He couldn't _let_ him die alone.

Danny reached for his partner hesitantly, heart pounding in fear at what he would find waiting for him in the dark. Trembling fingertips skidded across the rumpled fabric of Steve's shirt to be pressed desperately into the side of his partner's neck. Teeth gritted, Danny held his breath… and exhaled in relief. He could feel the weak, thready beat stubbornly persisting underneath his ice-cold fingers. Steve was still alive.

 

But something was different and as it slowly dawned on Danny what the change was, his blood ran cold. Steve’s skin was cool and clammy. His fever was gone… but that wasn’t a good thing, not here, not now, not like this. It could mean only one thing- his condition deteriorated yet further. Sepsis had Steve in its merciless grasp. His body was shutting down, slowly and inexorably. He didn’t have long. 

Danny flopped down, leant against the wall and lifted Steve back into his arms, his body trembling as he tightened his grasp on his partner's now entirely unresponsive form.Utter desolation taking over, Danny laid his forehead against Steve’s and let himself cry.

**H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Thank you to everyone still reading the story in spite of our horribleness to the boys. We love them really. Please review- hate it, love it, just want it to damn well end or whatever. We love feedback.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N We were blown away, stupendified by the reviews for the last chapter (when FF eventually decided we were allowed to see them, of course). You are all wonderful! Thank you!

 

**CHAPTER 12**

 

Blackness churned and twisted around him, images weaving themselves periodically out of the swirling inkiness, ghastly and distorted, stained red.   They drew closer and closer with each rasped out breath, their mangled, gore-stained limbs reaching for him, sticky and scaldingly hot, leaving traces of  nauseating crimson on his skin.  He writhed and twisted, trying to get away, but the blackness-born monsters only gripped him harder, coiling around his body like a hungry boa constrictor, squeezing, crushing, suffocating.  He struggled, gasped against the stifling pressure. 

 

Darkness jeered at his pathetic attempts, the sound of the laughter bone-chillingly familiar.  "Where do you think you're going, McGarrett?"  And then darkness parted momentarily, a familiar fire-scarred face weaving itself out of its blackest recesses, dark eyes alight with sadistic glee.  "Can't get away from me now, _brother._ "

 

"m'not your brother," he slurred, voice dripping with all the hatred he was capable of showing past the ever-tightening constriction around his throat.  "Get the hell away from me, you sick bastard."

 

"Tsk-tsk-tsk," the face mocked, the smooth skin of his left cheek creasing into a grimace of a smile.  "Is this any way to talk to your family, Steven?"

 

"Or do you only honor the brothers you've chosen yourself?" The face changed suddenly, morphing into another – a solid square jaw, a buzz of short blond hair, a pair of laughing green eyes. 

 

"Fre-Freddie," he gasped out, his mind reeling.  "What–"

 

"Of course your honor doesn't mean much, does it, Smooth Dog?  Not when you leave your _brother_ to die."

 

"What? No... I didn't..." he protested, but the image before him already shifted and morphed, the face of his friend contorting in sudden agony.  The bright green eyes widened and bulged out of their sockets, the jaws twitched sharply, snapping open at an awkward angle and stilling like that, frozen in a silent scream.  Then swiftly, irrevocably, the familiar features began to ossify before Steve's very eyes in a cruel, torturous display.  And soon all that remained was a skull, covered with patches of shriveled, dried up skin and Freddie's eyes that somehow continued to stare accusingly at him from out the gaping hollows of eye sockets.

 

The horribly skewed bony jaw clicked in reproach. "You abandoned me.  You left me to die."

 

"No, I... I tried..." He trailed off, the argument sounding feeble to his own ears, because his own conscience had been telling him the exact same thing for the past six years.  And then gasped in shock as his friend's mutilated skull advanced upon him in sudden, swift fury, the eerily glowing eyes hovering nary an inch from his own.

 

"YOU LET THEM DO THIS TO ME!" 

 

The deafening roar rolled over Steve, making him tremble, the scalding, sulphurous breath burning his skin. 

 

"I'm sorry," he choked out, guilt twisting his insides, wrenching his frantically beating heart right out of his chest.  "I'm so... SO sorry, Freddie, I–"

 

The skull flamed out suddenly, denying him absolution, and darkness descended once more, pitch-black and stifling.

 

"Freddie?" he called out, desperate.  "Freddie!"

 

"He's gone, Steven.  Dead.  Try to keep up, would you," a new voice mocked above his ear, and he turned, his face twisting into a tearfully pleading mask as he looked into his partner's uncharacteristically cold, pale blue eyes.  

 

"Don't," he begged, breathless.  "Please, Danny..."  

 

Danny's lips curled in a derisive, disparaging smile.  "You're a trouble magnet, Steven.  I think I told you that.  Everyone you touch is doomed."  The smile grew a bit colder, a bit more forced.  "I guess that means it's my turn now, huh..."   

 

"No..."  But his friend's image was already changing, the familiar blue eyes growing dull, lifeless, death spots bleeding through on the now bluish skin. 

 

Pale, bloodless lips moved one last time. "It's all your fault, Steven." And then Danny's eyes slipped closed forever, his features washing away into the surrounding blackness along with his own desperate scream of denial.

 

Then Danny was gone, and everything went deadly still, deadly quiet. Steve was alone again, alone in the dark. Was he still in the bunker? Was he even awake? He was lying flat out, cold as ice, his body rigid, unable to move.  And nothing, _nothing_ made sense anymore.

“Danny?” he called out, panic gripping him because he had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. “Da-Danny," he repeated, voice breaking as he pleaded uselessly with the uncaring blackness. "I’m sorry, Danny _, please!_ ”

****

There was no reply, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut against a welling of anguished tears as a razor-sharp pang of despair stabbed hard and deep through his heart.  His friend, his partner, his _brother_ was gone.  Dead.  He failed him, like he had failed everyone else who ever mattered to him in his pathetic life.  He had lost Danny and now he really _was_ alone.

 

Or maybe he wasn't.

 

A dull, glowing light appeared a short distance away. It started a mere pinprick but grew steadily in size, casting mad shadows around the dark space inside his mind as it flickered.

He looked towards it. It seemed to move, pulsate softly. A welcome feeling of warmth began to spread through his body, and then suddenly, inexplicably, he was able to move again. The pain disappeared. Completely. He looked down at his gut. _The stake was gone._ He gasped in shock, ran a shaking hand down the front of his body. No blood. No pain.

Breathing hard now, eyes wide with apprehension and confusion, he looked back up at the light. It latched onto him, capturing his attention. He felt his panic drop away and he rose to his knees, staring at it. It grew brighter as he looked, made him feel like it was looking right back at him, like it was _alive_. It was beautiful. He felt it pulling at him, drawing him in. He pushed himself to his feet and took a shaky step towards it, utterly mesmerized. And another step. And another. He reached out with his hand, wanting to touch it like he’d never wanted anything else in his life.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

“Lou! Talk to us!” said Chin, gritting his teeth as Kono pushed her car to the limit, other vehicles flashing past in a blur.

 

The tension in Grover’s voice was crystal clear over the phone. “Guys, I think we have a problem. Steve’s door wasn’t locked… and his cell _and_ his gun were lyin’ out on a table by the front door.”

Kono cursed under her breath, exchanging a panicked look with Chin. “Hesse has him, doesn’t he? Maybe, _maybe_ he might forget his phone but leaving his gun out? There is no way, _no way,_ he’d leave his gun lying out.”

 

Chin covered his face with his hand for a moment. “Okay, Lou you got anything else, anything that’s gonna help us?”

 

“I can’t see anything out of place, no sign of forced entry. If Hesse _has_ taken him, he went without a fight and I don’t buy that for a minute. His gun and phone – they don't look like they were dropped on that table in a hurry, if you know what I mean.  The placement looks deliberate, in plain view. Like–"

"Like he wanted us to find them? Or... someone was watching him," Chin finished grimly and Grover hummed in agreement.

"I’ll call crime lab, get ‘em over here. They’re gonna be stretched but we’ve got to shift the priority to the people who could still be alive.” Lou trailed off right there, leaving the horrific implication to hang.  They heard him clear his throat. “You at McGarrett’s truck yet?”

“Not yet.” Chin replied, then glanced down at his phone as it alerted him to another incoming call. “Listen Lou, that’s HPD trying to get through. I’ll call you back, yeah?”

 

He hit ‘answer’, sharing a fear-laden glance with his cousin. “Chin Ho Kelly here, speak to me.”

 

“Lieutenant Kelly? This is Officer Pau. I’m at Detective Williams' address. Sir, I’ve got indications of forced entry and the place is all smashed up. Looks like there was a struggle. There’s blood. Not lots, but it’s there.”

 

Chin closed his eyes, pinched his nose. “Okay, okay thanks for that. Stay there, keep the scene secure until we can get crime lab to you.” He hung up the phone.

 

The two cousins drove in silence for a few minutes, the screaming engine of the car the only sound. Their minds were going at a hundred miles an hour as they struggled to catch up with what was happening. What might already have happened.

 

“How long?”

 

Chin jerked his head up at his cousin’s words. “What?”

“How long has he had them? How long? Chin, the things Hesse did to those two men… what if Steve and Danny…?”

 

Chin shook his head. “Kono stop, we can’t assume anything.”

Kono laughed, short and sharp. “No, no we can’t, you’re right. But we can make some basic deductions, right? That’s what we do, isn’t it? Follow the evidence? They were due to go hiking yesterday morning. _Yesterday._ That never happened, did it? So if, just for a moment, we assume Hesse has them, he’s had had them for 24 hours, _minimum_. Maybe more. He’s out for revenge. He’s doing things that suggest he’s seriously unbalanced.  He tortured those other men for no good reason. 24 hours, Chin.” She paused there, her voice wavering, then “we were going _surfing._ We were _laughing_ about them arguing with each other, while they were….”

Chin reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Kono….” He started, then closed his mouth because every single word she said was right and there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could say that would put either of their minds at ease.

The two cousins stared ahead grimly as the landscape flashed by, praying that their friends hadn’t already met whatever fate Hesse had planned out for them.   

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

Danny scraped at the wall. His mind was down in the depths of the bunker with Steve. He wanted to hold his partner, be with him, but he _couldn’t_ stop trying to get them out because if he gave up his dying brother had no chance whatsoever. They had to get _out_.

 

Nothing seemed real anymore. The wall wasn’t real, the stone clutched between his mangled fingers wasn’t real. The bunker wasn’t real, the boy standing behind him, watching his every move wasn’t real. Steve’s pale, still body wasn’t real. _None_ of it was real.

 

Danny stopped and gasped as a frightening realization hit him. Maybe _he_ was dead. Maybe he was in hell, trapped forever trying to escape, watching his best friend die over and over again.

He shook his head. No. He couldn’t accept that, not yet anyway. He had to focus. He had to get through the wall.

He was working with his eyes shut, his own protection against the dark. He fumbled, dropping his stone, then felt blindly at the breeze block he was working on through the cloth covering his hands. He could feel nothing at all. Grunting in frustration, he peeled away the cloth that congealed blood had virtually glued to his right hand, thankful for the steadily expanding numbness that ensured that the pain in his hand had long gone.  He felt again, but his deadened fingers told him nothing even without their protective covering.

Danny stopped, leaning his forehead against the blocks, nose crushed against the cold stone. He frowned. He thought he could feel something. Movement in the stale air, whispering past his cheek. Was there air getting in? He couldn’t have made a hole, could he? He pushed himself upright and stood, stock still. Had he imagined it? Hesitantly, he bent to pick up the precious box of matches. He opened it and felt inside, knowing what he would find because for all he’d been careful, he’d been using them up.

 

The last match. It was the very last match.

He lit it and held it up to the wall, praying. Now he felt the familiar cold breath on the back of his neck, knew the boy was looking too, almost as though he wanted out as much as they did, but he didn’t waste precious energy turning to search for him.  He stood, staring at his progress as if from a thousand miles away. There was no hole. He had imagined that too. His mind was playing tricks again, he couldn’t trust a single thing it told him.More cement was gone, but he’d still only done a fraction of the work he needed to do to loosen a block.

The darkness closed in again and he looked in confusion at his own trembling fingers because the match shouldn’t have burnt out yet. It hadn’t. The flame seemed to swim before his eyes and then he couldn’t even feel the tiny stick anymore. He watched as it fell from his nerveless fingers to the step beneath. Then he was falling too, but he couldn’t feel that either. He couldn’t feel _anything._

****

He lay where he’d fallen, across the highest step, half wedged against the wall, legs out in front of him. He watched the flickering light of the match slowly burning out. The limits of his endurance had been pushed back and pushed back, over and over again, but this was it. He couldn’t take any more. This was the end. All of his pathetic efforts, all of his foolish, deluded hopes for a last minute reprieve crumbled uselessly away into the indifferent blackness.

 

A figure stepped forward out of the darkness, small and ephemeral. It sat down beside him. He couldn’t turn his head to look, but he sensed it and Danny knew who it was even if he still didn’t know why he was with them, what he wanted.  He felt its fear, its desperation.

 

Three of them. There were three of them together in this ice-cold prison, their tomb.

 

The match burned out.

 

He let his eyes close, let the darkness take him, wishing he was with Steve. Wishing he’d gone back down to Steve while he still could. Wishing he’d just stayed with him and never even tried to get out. Steve shouldn't have been left to die all alone down there in the dark.  Someone should have been with him.  _He_ should have been with him.It was too late now. He’d failed Steve in every possible way, right up to the end.

 

The last thing he felt was a small, cold hand touch his own for a lingering second, then it, too, was gone.

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

The red Chevy Cruz came to a dirt-skittering stop, nearly missing a patch of dark blue that stood out against a sea of succulent green.

 

"There!"

 

The cousins were out of the car, the engine still running. 

 

"Steve!  Danny!" 

 

It was a futile call, they knew, even before they reached the truck to find it empty.  Chin slid in behind the wheel, frowning at what he saw there.  "Fuel gauge is on empty," he reported, his fingers ghosting over the dashboard. "Keys still in the ignition.  We need to get the lab boys here too."

 

"I'll grab my laptop, take a look at the truck's GPS, see where it's been," Kono announced tightly, as Chin continued his careful examination of the inside of the Silverado's cab.   

 

Chin nodded distractedly."Copy that."

 

Kono returned moments later, laptop in hand, and within seconds she was already working frantically to get the connection with the truck's GPS set up. 

 

"You think they might still be alive?" The words were quiet, pleading almost, and Chin reached out, firm hand clasping her delicate shoulder. 

 

"We'll find them, Cuz," he insisted gruffly.  "We'll find them.  They'll be okay." 

 

She nodded, happy to accept the words of comfort for all they both knew them to be groundless, then swallowed down a lump that made her throat uncomfortably tight.And then her face brightened with resolve, and she blew out a breath, her finger rising to point at the screen.  "OK, the truck left Steve’s just before 9am yesterday and drove direct to Sunset Beach Elementary. It sat there for four hours, then… seems to have taken a tour of the North Shore before ending up here,” she reported, then frowned. “So… was Steve driving it to begin with, or at all? Has it just been driven aimlessly around and dumped to put us off the trail?”

 

Chin bit his lip, fingers brushing over a strange tacky rectangle marring the top of an otherwise obsessively spotless dashboard.“I don’t know," he murmured pensively, "I don’t know, but Kono… Danny’s place was smashed up but there’s no sign of a struggle at Steve’s.  He went without a fight, right? So suppose Danny was taken first…”

 

“And they contacted Steve.”

 

"Told him he was being watched," Chin added darkly.

 

“Watched? What?” Kono looked up from her laptop, throwing a questioning glance at her cousin.

 

"I've got adhesive residue here," Chin said by way of explanation, tapping the gooey outline with his finger to illustrate the point.  "Something was attached here.  Could've been a camera mount."  He met Kono's gaze, nodding grimly at the horrified understanding he saw in the dark, widening stare.  "My guess is we'd find something similar at Steve's place."

Kono swallowed dryly, licked her lips.  "So they called him, told him they had Danny, told him they were watching his every move... He'd..." She trailed off, flicking her eyes back to the screen of her laptop.  "He would go, wouldn't he.  He would go wherever the hell he was told if he knew they were holding Danny.”

Chin nodded once, sharp and sure.  Because no matter how much Steve and Danny bickered lately, there was never any doubt in the minds of anyone who knew them – if one of the two was ever in trouble, the other would come to their rescue, no matter when, no matter where, no matter the price. 

 

“So then Sunset Beach Elementary must have been where Steve was told to go," Kono mused, finger hovering over the map on the screen.  "If that’s what happened, why? Why would Hesse send him there?”

"Sunset Beach..." Chin leaned over Kono's shoulder, his eyes narrowing in thought.  "Isn't that where the 'Ehukai Trail begins? It starts right at that school. But why would Hesse want Steve to go there? What could the draw be? You’d think he’d want to lure him somewhere enclosed, somewhere contained, not into the rainforest. Right?" 

 

There was a breathless moment where the two cousins stared at each other as the realization clicked into place.

 

"The bunkers!" they gasped out simultaneously.  They turned as one, sprinting for the car.

   

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Holy mother of God!!!!!!!!!!! Could it possibly be that finally, finally, the team are going to find the boys? But are they gonna be too late?????? Anyone interested in something resembling a rescue chapter? Huh? Huh??
> 
> Drop us a review, make us smile,
> 
> Love, PP and Swifters


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N So there was a certain amount of skepticism when we mentioned a possible rescue chapter last time.   Didn't believe we'd do it, did ya? ;-)  Well, I guess we do deserve some of the skepticism.  Still, we tried....

**CHAPTER 13**

The peaceful rainforest descended into organized chaos. A helicopter buzzed overhead, voices shouted, dogs barked. The search team, carefully coordinated by the vestiges of the Five-0 taskforce, was working systematically through the dense vegetation en route to the WW2 structures that had been swallowed up by the forest decades earlier. Nothing would be missed- not a footprint, a broken branch… a concealed body.

 

Chin, Kono and Lou were a short distance ahead, negotiating the trail with watchful care, but pressing on as fast as they dared. Their goal was based on deduction and instinct, not fact… and the outcome of their search entirely uncertain. Steve and Danny might not have been brought here at all… or Hesse could already have finished them off and dumped their bodies somewhere else entirely.

 

The tension was electric, almost painfully so.

 

They scanned for evidence as they moved along, eyes searching for any indication that someone might have passed this way. There were occasional footprints along the trail, but that was to be expected - for all it was little used, the occasional visitor did brave its challenges to discover the hidden relics of Oahu’s wartime past. 

  

 

They were with a dog handler and his German Shepherd, and the dog was determinedly following _something. Something_ had passed along the route to the long-abandoned buildings recently. The animal wasn’t trained to follow a specific scent, the fresh trail that had piqued its interest could have been _anything -_ a walker, a boar, another freaking dog. But, for whatever reason, it felt right.

 

Two long miles later and a sharp turn off the main trail, they began to come across the structures - the cold, solid shapes, alien in the lush, green forest. They moved around and inside each one, guns drawn, clearing them as they would any crime scene in case Hesse was there, lying in wait.

 

As her teammates were finishing a fruitless search amongst the ruins of a gun emplacement, Kono stopped suddenly as something caught her eye through the trees. She wiped the back of her hand across her face, clearing the sweat from her eyes. It was yet another bunker, the bland concrete a stark contrast to the subtle shades of green and brown surrounding it.  But there was something different about it.It looked wrong, and she wasn't even sure why.  Drawn, she moved closer, peering intently at the wall facing her.Then she realized what the problem was. _Fresh blockwork._ There was fresh blockwork where the door should have been. She took another step toward it, moving away from the others, as she tried to decipher the significance of what she was seeing.

 

“Guys?” she whispered, then repeated her call at the top of her lungs.  And then she was running, sprinting towards it, her heart in her mouth because what the hell had Hesse done? She reached the building and placed both hands on the wall as though she could _feel_ whether Steve and Danny were inside.

 

She opened her mouth, pulled in a lungful of air. “STEVE! DANNY! YOU IN THERE?”

 

There was nothing, no response, no sound whatsoever from within and she suddenly felt chilled in the humid Hawaiian rainforest, the cold seeming to leach out of the building straight into her hands, her body, filling her with complete and utter dread.

 

The others were beside her then, yelling, moving around the building, looking for a way in. The dog was there, too, sitting by the blocked door, barking and whining. She turned and looked at it, wondering what it was that the animal had sensed.

 

“I’ve got some of the stolen gear from the building site! Round the back!” Lou’s booming voice had them all moving to join him.

 

Kono cast her eyes around in disbelief. The vegetation behind the bunker was completely flattened.  The empty bags of quick-drying cement, a few extra breezeblocks, shovels, a generator, cables, fuel cans, wheelbarrows…. And a huge pile of soil. Someone must have dug a big motherfucking hole _somewhere._ But where.  Why?

 

“Guys, I do _not_ like the look of this, any of this." Lou shook his head, his expression grim.  "Anyone see another way in?”

 

There was a chorus of no’s.

 

“Okay. Okay, Chin, get on the radio. We need to get through that wall. We need tools here, _now_!”

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

Sparks flew as the angle grinder worked, cutting through the blocks like butter. Lou took a step back just as Chin stepped forwards, sledgehammer in hand. Three massive blows and two blocks fell inwards. Chin threw the sledgehammer down, pulled out his flashlight and looked in, grimacing at the rush of stale, frigid air that assaulted him.

 

Kono looked on with bated breath.

 

“Shit. _Danny_! You hear me?” Chin’s urgent exclamation had them all staring at him in shock, hearts pounding with hope and trepidation.

Kono covered her mouth as she watched her cousin shift forward, squeezing his head and one arm through the gap, trying to reach further in.  “Chin?” she asked, suddenly full of dread."What do you see? Is he hurt? Is he…?”

 

There was a strained pause, then Chin let out a growl of frustration. “He’s right here, right behind the wall. _Shit,_ I can’t reach him. We need more space.”

 

“He alive?” She felt the words catch in her throat, her voice trembling.

 

There was another, longer, pause then a helpless, reluctant,  “I don’t know."   

 

Chin pressed himself further into the hole in the wall. **"** Danny! Danny, just hold on, we’re coming!”  He pulled back, throwing a desperate, evaluative  glance at the tools at their disposal.

 

“Okay," he breathed out, "okay, we can’t risk debris hitting Danny, the sledgehammer is out. Gonna have to work both sides of the blocks with the angle grinder, do a bit at a time from the gap we have.”

 

Kono stared at the gap, her eyes skittering evaluatively over the narrow opening.  “Wait!” she called out, and suddenly she was shedding her gear, placing her weapon on the ground, hands shaking with urgency. “I can fit through! I can check him out, maybe move him somewhere safer so we can get in to them. Help me, cuz.”

 

And then she was moving, pushing herself in front of them, fingers grasping at the edges of the dark, gaping hole.  Willing hands boosted her up, supporting her legs as she wiggled to get through the tight opening. For a brief moment she found herself suspended awkwardly in mid-air as she reached down with her hands, searching fingers fumbling in the darkness for something to latch on to, to catch herself.  The back of her left hand scraped against a concrete step, while her right one bumped against something soft, fleshy and terrifyingly cold... a leg. Danny’s leg.  She bit her lip, slid her hand sideways, felt for another clear bit of floor to lean on, and rolled herself in, wincing as her roll took her down a few steps, the sharp concrete edges biting into her sides. She blanked out the momentary discomfort, got to her feet, catlike.

 

Someone – Chin? – was shining their flashlight through the hole, the bright beam skimming across the small, cramped space to rest on Danny.  And Kono jolted back involuntarily, her breath catching in her throat because Danny looked... he looked...  She blew out a deep, steadying breath, trying to come to terms with seeing her friend like this – his horribly pale, dust covered face bruised and swollen, every inch of his body scraped and battered beneath the dirt.  His chest looked still in the shadows that the narrow beam of the flashlight was simply unable to drive back, and she simply couldn't tell if he was even breathing.  She crouched beside him, pressed trembling fingers to his neck.

 

There was a pulse. It was weak and rapid, but it was there.  Kono closed her eyes briefly, relief making her dizzy.

 

“He’s alive! Guys, he’s alive!” she called, all but choking on her own emotions.

 

She cupped his cheek gently, barely hearing the relieved acknowledgements from outside. “Danny? It’s Kono. We’re gonna get you out of here, okay? You’re safe now.”

 

There was no response, and she glanced down, meaning to squeeze his hand gently to reassure him of her presence. She froze halfway to her goal, her eyes widening in horror. _Fuck._ His hands! And she knew right then what he’d been trying desperately to do when he’d finally collapsed.  Her throat closed up in a swell of fiery, suffocating rage as she pictured her friend scraping his fingers raw against the wall as he fought to get out with the last of his strength. She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling to push down her swirling, raging emotions, then leant forwards and pressed a kiss to his filthy hair.

 

"It's alright now, Danny.  Help's here.  It's all gonna be alright."  Gently, ever so gently, she slid her arms under Danny's armpits and dragged him carefully away from the walled-up doorway, settling him further down on the steps, propped awkwardly against the wall. 

 

"He's clear!" she yelled out and the banging of the sledgehammer started up again even before her words finished ringing in the hollow space around them.

 

But she had more to do yet.  There was still something missing.  _Someone_ missing.She turned and looked into the darkness. _Steve_.

 

"Chin, I'm gonna go look for Steve!  I need a light!" she called over the loud crumbling of the cement blocks and stood to pick up the flashlight that was tossed in almost instantly through the widening hole.

 

She nodded absently to Chin's worried “Careful, cuz," threw one last look at Danny’s motionless form and set off down the concrete stairs.

 

She moved swiftly but cautiously, her eyes tracking the beam of the flashlight, skimming over the dank, mildew-stained walls, the age-cracked, scuffed up steps.  The atmosphere in the bunker was oppressive, dark and foreboding.  She could almost smell the fear in the stale air that had engulfed her, draping over her body like a ghoulish blanket, sticking to her skin, making her shiver.  Her sense of unease grew with each subsequent step, compounded by a very fundamental observation - Danny was alone. If Steve and Danny were both in here, if Hesse had, indeed, taken them both, why would Danny have been trying to get out alone?  Had Steve met a different fate - was he somewhere else altogether? If he _was_ here, what could've possibly happened to make Danny leave his side?

She soon had her answer and she froze in horrified disbelief as she entered the underground room and her flashlight beam alighted on her boss, her mentor, her _friend…_

"Steve..." The name tumbled past her suddenly numb lips – a breathless, choked off whisper that melted effortlessly into the surrounding blackness.  Behind her she could hear the sounds of pounding, of cement blocks breaking and falling to the ground, but it was all muffled, hushed somehow by the paralyzing surrealism of the scene before her, the sheer savagery of the violence that had been done to her friend.

 

Nausea roiled in her gut and she swallowed, tight and convulsive, sucking in a sharp breath of air that smelled musty and putrid, like death.  She shoved the morbid comparison away like a bothersome drunken suitor, gritted her teeth hard enough to make her jaw ache with the pressure. 

 

_This wasn't... Steve wasn't..._

"I need a medic down here!" she hollered, tuning out the little voice in her head that wondered if it wasn't already too late for that.  And then she was moving, as fast as she could on legs that didn't feel like they were her own.  She plopped on her knees beside him, doing her desperate best not to look at the thick, gore-smeared spike sticking gruesomely out of Steve's stomach **.**

"Steve?" She leaned over him, ear to his mouth, eyes fixed on his chest, straining in vain to detect any sign of breaths. She sat up, her fingers bone-chillingly cold and decidedly unsteady as they reached hesitantly for the skin of his neck.  "Steve?"  _Please, please, please,_ she begged, straining to feel something, _anything,_ under her trembling fingertips.

There was a rush of movement beside her, a sharp intake of breath, and then a hand, steady and familiar, grasped her shoulder.

 

"Medics?" she asked without turning, too intent on her task.

 

"They're coming.  Two minutes away."  She felt Chin's hand tighten a fraction, could see him duck his head, trying to catch her eyes.   "Is he–?" 

 

She shook her head mutely, teeth grinding into her bottom lip as she fought to push down a suffocating wave of despair that threatened to overwhelm her.  And her training had her moving into position to commence CPR even as her heart threatened to break.  “I don’t think he’s breathing, Chin. I don't feel _anything.”_ she forced out, voice shredded raw with anguish. “I think... _God_ , Chin, I think he’s gone.”

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Errr. Should we be running to hide? Still, they're getting out the bunker, right? 13 chapters in the fecking thing for Danny, 11 for Steve. If you'd known at the start they were gonna be in there for that long would you even have started reading this? What the hell were we thinking?
> 
>    
> A/N 2. Is this a good time to mention we have a fair amount of redrafting still to do on the remaining chapters so there will be a short delay before the next posting? (We are definitely running to hide this time). 
> 
>    
> Please review! We love reviews. They keep us motivated, help us write faster!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Apologies for the delay… we’ve spend a significant proportion of the last few days squealing about the upcoming finale instead of redrafting (and an equal proportion being paranoid about it in various ways). However, we’re back on track!

 

**Chapter 14**

_Six hours later._

Kono squeezed her eyes tight shut and shivered, unable to stop the flurry of terrifying images in her mind.

The darkness. Steve’s cold lips as she covered his mouth with her own. The incessant, exhausting rhythm she’d pounded into his chest. The awful, involuntary jerk of his body when the medics arrived and fought to bring him back. Watching him rise into the sky, the nail-biting seconds as he was winched from the tiny clearing towards the roaring helicopter above. And Danny, motionless and white beneath the layers of dirt, waiting unknowingly for his turn for evacuation, deprioritized despite the fact that he was just barely with them.

She had held his wrist tightly as they waited for the second chopper, had spoken to him gently, stroked his battered face. She’d tried to shut down, forcibly kept herself focused on the small tangible details in lieu of thinking.  On the fluid running into Danny's arms from the IVs the medics had set up, on the steam of his breath clouding the oxygen mask.  Danny was alive and she tried to focus on that and not on everything else, not on pointless speculation over the horror of the partners’ long ordeal. Not on the tear stains on Danny’s filthy cheeks.  Not on Steve. It was all too much.

Dimly she was aware of her cousin’s hand resting on her shoulder – the man himself sat beside her in the waiting room, motionless, lost in his own thoughts – but she felt none of the warmth the physical contact should have provided.  She just felt numb.

They both looked up as the waiting room door opened, both desperate for an update yet dreading the same.

 

It was just Grover.

 

He looked terrible, Kono realized. A haunting reflection of herself and her cousin.

“How they doin’?” Lou rasped out.

Chin pushed out a slow, audible breath, squeezed Kono’s shoulder. “Steve’s still in surgery. The surgeon came and spoke to us before they started. He said the stake caused an infection- peritonitis.  It...uh... it grew worse over time, developed into sepsis."He paused, flicking an anguished gaze at Kono who shuddered visibly at the mention of the time that had passed, the time they had wasted unknowingly chasing after leads that had done nothing but take their attention away from thoughts of their friends.  He sighed heavily, shook his head.  "They stabilized him enough to operate but… he said to prepare for the worst. That we should contact Steve’s family.”

Grover put a hand over his face and sank down into a chair. “Have you…?”

 

Chin nodded. “I called Mary Ann. She’s going to get the next available flight.”

Grover closed his eyes for a moment, scraped his teeth over his bottom lip. “Fuck…," he breathed out finally.  "And Danny?”

 

“Danny’s still unconscious but he’s holding his own right now. He’s still being monitored in ICU. His doctor… his doctor said he wouldn’t have lasted much longer. He’s severely dehydrated, hypothermic and suffering from exhaustion. And he’d been beaten. We knew that, of course, we could see that."  Chin trailed off again, his free hand curling into an angry fist, because what they could see of Danny's injuries in the chaotic rush of the rainforest rescue was enough to set any of them on a killing path."He’d had a hefty blow to the head but they did an MRI scan and there’s no significant brain injury although he’s probably concussed.”

“Okay. Okay, that sounds… good. Right?” Lou ventured, plainly desperate for something positive.

 

Chin nodded once. “Yeah. Yeah, they’re saying he should pull through. He’s still unconscious but his vitals are getting stronger. They’re pretty confident he should start to come round soon. They’re rehydrating him, warming him up right now but if he remains stable they’re going to move him into a private room later today and we’ll be able to see him.  He should be okay... but he’s a mess. He has four broken ribs and…. And his neck. He has ligature marks- bruising and swelling. It looks like someone actually tried to _hang_ him.  He was lucky I suppose. They said there was swelling in his trachea too. His windpipe could have closed right up, he could have…" Chin slammed his eyes shut, shaking his head as though willing for whatever image his mind had conjured up to disappear. "Anyway," he gritted out, visibly struggling to get his emotions back under control, "thank God that didn’t happen. Then there are his hands. His hands are… well, we saw them.  You know. They’ve patched them up but the doc said they might have to operate at some point. He might need skin grafts.”

 

Kono shook her head at that, finally finding her voice. “I just keep picturing him trying to get them out of there. It must have been terrifying. They must both have been so scared.”

Grim silence followed her words, her teammates' dark anguished gazes lost in the awful memories of what they had discovered just a few hours earlier.

“I spoke to Rachel," Chin said finally, breaking the tormented quiet.  "It’s been all over the media so there’s no hiding it from Grace. She was gonna bring the kids in to see Danny. I told her to wait a while, said I’d call when he woke up and got his bearings.” He heaved an exhausted sigh. “But I can’t help but worry about his state of mind when he does come out of it, you know?”

Lou grunted in agreement. “I just hope to hell McGarrett makes it," he added gruffly. **"** For _me_ because I’m a selfish bastard and I love the crazy son-of-a-bitch… but for Danny too. Can you imagine how Danny’s gonna cope if McGarrett doesn’t pull through? I mean he’s gonna be messed up after an experience like that anyway. Getting snatched to begin with and having the crap beaten out of him. That would be enough shit to deal with on its own, but follow that up with 28 hours in the dark trying to claw your way through a wall with no idea if anyone’s gonna come and find you, while your best buddy’s lying there with an injury like that and you just can’t help 'em? How is anyone meant to get past that?”

There was no answer to that, and the three friends were once again plunged into silence, the prospect of one man they loved dying and another forever traumatized just too much for them to fully process.

“Do you think Steve was awake for much of it?” Kono choked out the question that had been torturing her since she first saw him, stake protruding grotesquely through his gut.

Chin bit his lip, hard, and glanced at each of them in turn. “I don’t know. I really, really hope not." He sucked in a sharp breath, blowing out a soft, reluctant admission on a heavy exhale. "But he could have been. There was no head injury, no heavy bleeding. He could have been conscious.”

Kono pursed her lips, eyes suddenly welling. “Danny had been crying. I’ve never seen Danny cry. Not properly. I mean, he was pretty devastated after the thing with Rick Peterson, and after what happened with his brother of course. And when we got Steve back from Wo Fat that last time too, remember? There have been times when he nearly… But he never... He must have been so, so… ” She trailed off, then shot Chin a watery smile as she felt his hand tighten on her shoulder.

****

“I know. I know, cuz,” he murmured, then bowed his head. 

A fat tear rolled down Kono’s cheek and she closed her eyes fast. Hesse. Fucking Hesse had so, so much to answer for. She cleared her throat, forced words out past the tightness there. “Lou, I know HPD are stretched with the number of crime scenes we have, but have they made any progress? Anything that could lead us to Hesse? I don’t know about you guys, but I want him.”  She all but growled that last declaration, emotional pain and fear for her friends fueling her rage, making her tremble with it.

Lou stood and put his hands on his head, his feet moving almost on their own accord as he began to slowly pace the floor, his long strides punctuating his words. “Okay, first things first. Until we have Hesse we’re taking every precaution. HPD have protection details on _everyone_ we could come up with who could be on Hesse’s list. And _our_ friends and families too. As you know we have officers here in the hospital too. We’re doing our damndest to make sure the crazy son-of-a-bitch doesn’t get his claws into anyone else.”

“Okay. That’s good. We need that. And Hesse?” Kono pushed.

Lou shrugged minutely, never breaking his stride.“HPD are still working on the crime scenes, they’ll report back in the next couple of hours. I’ve got all of our CI’s with their ears to the ground for any whispers about his movements and we’ve got the main airports and docks covered in case he tries to get away. We’ll get him.”

“We _have_ to get him.” Kono did growl this time, teeth gritted at the thought of the bastard who had done this to her 'ohana evading justice.

Lou nodded darkly, echoing her vengeful thoughts. “Guys, I want to stay here, I really do, but HPD are stretched, I’ve got to get back out there and help. We can’t risk losing Hesse.”

“I know Lou, I’m sorry, we should...” Chin started.

Lou cut in. “No, you need to stay here. Just pass on any news about Steve, the moment you get it. And you’ve got to be there for Danny when he wakes up. That... it's gonna be tough... for all of you. Any new information, I’ll get it to you guys straight away, keep you in the loop. Okay?”

****

Kono got to her feet and walked over to Grover, wrapping her slender arms around his big frame. “Thanks Lou,” she choked out, absurdly grateful for the bear-like strength of the two large arms that enfolded her in response.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

Time had passed, Danny was vaguely aware of that. How much, he had no idea, but something was different and he couldn’t quite comprehend what it was.

****

The impenetrable blackness was gone.

Red. He could see nothing but red and he didn’t understand it at all. His body felt numb and heavy, unresponsive. He began to breathe harder, afraid to open his eyes, afraid of the black nothingness that _had_ to still be there. How long had he been out this time? Steve could be… _would_ be... He shook his head, face screwing up in distress.

 

Something warm and familiar squeezed tight around his wrist.

“Danny? Easy brah, you’re safe, you’re okay.”

And Danny shook his head again, because that voice was Chin’s and that was _not_ possible. There were only three of them in the bunker. Just three. Not Chin. Just Danny and the people he’d failed.

Then there were fingers on his cheek, stroking at tears he hadn’t known were falling.

 

“Danny. It’s over. Open your eyes. _Please._ ”

And that was Kono’s voice and, God, Danny so, _so_ wanted to believe her. He played her words over in his head, wondering. But in the end it was her voice that he realized he couldn’t blank out. She sounded so sad, so desperate and Danny knew he had to take the risk, he _had_ to look, even if the reality that faced him was nothing but the black hell he was fully expecting.

He opened his eyes. There was no darkness. There were shapes and shades of light and dark, blurred and confusing. He was lying down and the ground wasn’t cold. It was soft. He stared, gaze unfocused, uncomprehending, disbelieving. He could hear voices - Chin’s and Kono’s, their tones soothing, encouraging. He couldn’t accept it was true. His mind had to be playing tricks.

He dropped his gaze **,** looked dimly at each of his own hands in turn. They were bandaged, the dressings clean and white. No blood, no torn strips of shirt. Steve’s shirt. _Steve_.

“S-Steve?” he croaked, peering with timid, desperate hope back up at the outlines that looked like his friends.

He didn’t miss the ensuing silence and the movement that had to be a glance exchanged between the two, he didn’t miss that. That was bad. If this was real, that was bad.

“P-please,” he tried.

“Easy, easy, you need to rest. You had a close call, brah,” Chin’s voice replied, and the grip on Danny’s wrist tightened further.

“Steve?” and now he _knew_ the tears were falling, but he couldn’t stop them, didn’t even try.

There was a sigh, followed by a reluctant surrender. “Okay.  Okay, Danny. Steve's... he’s alive. He made it through surgery and he’s… he’s hanging on.”

“Alive?” He sounded like he was begging. Maybe he was, pleading for it to be true. He squinted, trying to focus, to find a face, an expression to read. He found Kono and her eyes were filled with tears and fear and sympathy. He started to shake, then Kono’s slender hand was on his shoulder squeezing gently.

“He was… dying. I couldn’t h-help him... couldn't get _out_.” Danny’s voice, weak already, broke on the last word and he felt the bed dip beside him, felt lips press to his forehead, heard Kono’s voice even closer. 

“Danny, it’s okay. You tried, you did everything you could. We _know_ that. No one could have done more. We got there, okay?  It's all gonna be alright now.”

Danny shook his head. “S’my fault. Need to..see him.. I _left_ him. Please.”

“Soon." It was Chin who spoke, his voice tired, strained.  "He’s in ICU and visiting is strictly limited. And you still need to rest. But I understand and I’ll see what I can arrange, get you up there, okay.”

Danny shook his head again, mute, because he wanted to see his partner. Chin _didn’t_ understand.  Not at all. Danny had left Steve, left him _alone_ and he _needed_ to be with him.  He screwed his eyes shut as the memories of Steve’s screams and the smell of his burning flesh and his soft voice as he said goodbye rushed unbidden into his mind. Weak beyond belief, he raised a shaking, bandaged hand slowly towards his face and covered his eyes, trying to push down the feelings of helplessness, the terror of the constant threat of devastating, insurmountable loss. Trying to _breathe_.

 

They were talking around him, at him, about him, he didn’t know. Then Kono’s voice was beside his ear again, familiar and warm and soothing in spite of everything.

“Hey, hey, stay with us, Danny. Please. I’ll ask, see what they say. Get you there as soon as we possibly can. I promise.”

Danny listened. He tried to focus on Kono’s soft voice, on Chin’s strong hand on his arm, tried to draw strength from his friends. He could hear Chin speaking to him again, trying to… soothe him, distract him, whatever.

“Easy brah, you’re both safe, Steve _is_ sick but he’s in the best hands. We got you both out, okay? You’re safe.”

Danny frowned at that, breathing hard through his nose as he fought to concentrate. There was something wrong in what Chin had said, something missing. Of course… both… got them _both_ out. Danny opened his eyes, tried to blink past the tears. “The boy,” he rasped, “d’you get him too?”

Chin frowned minutely, a look of confusion crossing his face and Danny didn’t miss that either. The red-haired boy… Danny's thoughts ground to a sharp, terrified halt. The boy had been real. Hadn’t he? He had seen him, had _felt_ him.  He couldn't have imagined all that, could he?His fundamental uncertainly about what was real and what was not kicked back in with a vengeance and his lips clamped shut. 

“Danny… “ and Chin’s tone was careful, hesitant, like he was dealing with some hysterical assault victim. “There was no boy. There were human remains in there with you guys. Is that what you mean? The crime scene team said they thought you’d come across them.”

Danny didn’t answer, didn’t know what to say. He shot Chin a glance, avoiding his eye, and nodded dumbly, lips still firmly closed. His teammates exchanged another look and he pretended not to see it.

Then Chin leant slightly away from Danny, the movement drawing his eye. When the Hawaiian straightened back up there was a red manila folder in his free hand. He laid it on his knee and flicked through it one-handed, maintaining his solid grip on Danny’s wrist as he did.

****

Danny stared at that red folder as Chin kept talking in a low, calm, calm tone.

****

“Duke dropped off the initial reports a couple of hours ago. The forensic team went in after we got you out. They recovered a body. Skeletal. They’re saying it’s historic- it had been there a while, but Hesse had disturbed it when he was digging that... trap. It’s with Max now.  Max said it’s an adolescent and he _thinks_ it's a male, but he can’t be absolutely certain yet. I can read you the reports when you feel up to it, if you like.  But Danny, what makes you think it was a boy? The report says only the skull was exposed when the forensic work started. I guess you realized it was young from that but from the looks of this report Max has had to do some pretty complicated statistical analysis based on the measurements of several body parts to try to establish the sex.  He’s going to try to extract DNA to get a profile but he’s not gotten there as yet. How did you know?”

Danny’s mouth was moving now but he had no idea what to say. He looked up at Chin, feeling entirely lost.  Had the red-haired boy been real or not? He shook his head in confusion, feeling like Hesse might just have torn away the last remnants of his sanity. “Don’t remember,” he muttered, cringing at the pathetic waver in his voice.

Chin's responding smile looked forced.  “Okay, that's okay.  Look, I’m sorry, you’re not ready for that kind of thing.  None of that matters just now. Please just rest, Danny.”

Utterly exhausted, he complied, closing his eyes on reflex. And opened them again because all he could see was Steve, alone in the dark, dying, and he couldn’t rest, he had to see him, had to know he was alive, had to know he hadn’t killed him. He took a deep breath, but then he could smell the burning flesh again and he gagged, trying frantically to sit up, shaking off the gentle hands that tried to hold him down.

“Danny, come on, you’ve got to calm down, brah,” he heard vaguely.

Danny continued to struggle weakly, refusing to surrender to the insistent push of their restraining hands, and shook his head in protest. “Steve… Oh God. I tried to… I think I made it _worse.”_

“ _No._ " Chin gripped his shoulder, strong and steady. "No. Danny, listen to me. The doctors saw what you did. They saw you’d cauterized the wound. They think it _helped_. They think it slowed down the progression of the infection. You did good, okay? You gave him a chance.”

“He gonna make it?” Danny croaked, looking first at one teammate then at the other, eyes wide and pleading for the right answer.

The hand on his shoulder tightened, the grip just shy of painful.  “Hey, hey," his friend chided him gently, his voice low.  "It’s Steve, okay? You know what he’s like. If anyone can beat this he can.”

Danny reached up then, trying ineffectively to grab at the front of Chin’s shirt with his thickly bandaged hands, because that was just bull, those were just lines, those told him nothing. “ _No!_ ” he gritted out. “Tell me.” He glared at Chin through watery eyes, suddenly furious. “ _Tell. Me_.”

His teammates hands were tightening on his shoulder, his wrist again and suddenly Danny didn’t want it.  He didn’t want comfort, or sympathy.  That stuff – it felt wrong for him now.  He didn’t deserve it.

****

Chin took a breath that seemed to catch somehow on its way out. His voice when he spoke again sounded about as broken as Danny felt.  “You're right, Danny, I'm sorry.  I’ll be straight with you. He’s sick.  Very sick. The infection was advanced and the injury was severe. The doctors... they’re doing everything they can, but... they just don’t know which way it’s going to go yet."  He paused before adding a quiet, mournful, "I'm sorry.”

 

Danny’s face screwed up again, the tears continuing to fall, everything seeming to crash in round his ears, control evaporating. And he had to get to Steve. _He had to._ He fought to get up, fought to get to Steve, thrashing weakly against his friends, their plaintive words lost in a haze of desperation. He could hear someone crying, distant and pathetic and he knew somehow it must be him and some buried part of him hated himself for that weakness too, but he was unable, _incapable_ of doing anything about it.

Then there was a white coat in front of him, a needle sliding into his arm and it all faded away.

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

>    
> A/N Please review. We are pathetic and needy and it makes us feel warm and fuzzy when you tell us what you think. Even if you hate it. OK, that makes us feel less warm and fuzzy but we appreciate the feedback anyway.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N
> 
>  
> 
> Swifters- *looks at PP, holds out hand* “You ready?”
> 
> PP- *looks at Swifters, takes the proffered hand…* “No. Shall we anyway?”
> 
> Both together- “For KomodoQueeeeeeeeeeeen….”
> 
> And they jump down the rabbit hole…

 

**Chapter 15**

“Lou, you have _got_ to be kidding me. Are you serious?”  Chin glared at his teammate incredulously, hands tightening on the handles of the empty wheelchair he’d been maneuvering through the hospital corridors back towards Danny’s room before he’d run into his teammate.

 

The big man shook his head slowly. “I’m as mad as you are, buddy, but the intel seems solid. It looks like Hesse has gotten away. Left Oahu.”

 

Chin glanced worriedly up towards the open doorway of Danny’s room before turning back to Lou. “I thought HPD had the island on lockdown!” he hissed.

“Yeah, but too late it seems. Kamekona has a contact who rented a light aircraft to someone matching Hesse’s description. He paid cash up front. It took off yesterday morning- _before_ we got called to the homicides at the Hilton Hawaiian Village- and it was due to be returned last night.”

 

“Oh that’s just great," Chin grimaced, struggling to keep a lid on frustration and anger that threatened to bubble to the surface. "And let me guess- a no show?”

 

“Exactly," Lou confirmed with a grim nod. "That’s why it’s just come to light now. I’ve been working on verifying the story and it looks like it checks out. Crime lab lifted prints from inside the vehicle that guys who took the plane ditched at the airfield -- we’ve got no hits on them but they’re an exact match for prints lifted from the Silverado _and_ Danny’s apartment as well as from the building site where our original vics were murdered. It all fits." He pressed his lips together, blowing out a heavy, angry breath through his nose.  "And get this," he added, throwing a quick glance behind him as if to ensure that his voice wasn't carrying far enough to be overheard by their sick teammate, "Kame’s contact said five people left in that aircraft.  Five!  How much are you willing to bet it's the same five yahoos we have on CCTV dumping those bodies?”

 

Chin shook his head in denial. “Lou, this is all wrong. Hesse can’t get away with this. He _can’t_. The bastard has…” his voice was riding steadily and Lou raised a finger in warning, glancing again at Danny’s door.

 

“He is _not_ going to get away with this.” Lou whispered. “We’ll catch up with him. Now a flight plan _was_ lodged and the plane was supposedly heading for LA… but never arrived there. We don’t know where they went. We’ve issued alerts- state, federal and Interpol. I’m working on getting an Interpol Red Notice issued for him…. And I called Joe White. He’s on the warpath and the man has contacts _everywhere._ It might take longer than we were hoping, but we’ll get him. The bastard messed with the wrong people, brother.  He ain’t getting away with it.”

 

Chin uncurled the death grip he had on the handles of the wheelchair, ran a trembling hand down his face. “I just can’t believe he slipped through our fingers before we even realized what he’d done!” The hand descended sharply, a hastily formed fist slamming hard against the rubber-covered grip. " _Shit_!"  Grimacing again, this time in pain, he shook out his throbbing hand and looked up, meeting Grover's darkly understanding gaze. “You just been in with Danny?”

 

“Yep.” Lou nodded, mouth set in a grim line.

 

“Did you tell him?”

 

Lou shook his head. “Chin, the boy’s a mess. He’s been conscious less than a day, he’s hurting, he’s weak, he’s in shock and he’s doped to the gills. This here is the last thing he needs to hear.” He huffed out a long breath. “Any change?” he asked, his gaze flicking upwards to indicate the subject of his query who lay prostrate in the ICU two floors above.

 

“Steve? No. No change. He’s hanging on. Just.” The two men looked at each other for a moment, sharing their shock and fear in silence, then Chin drew a shaky breath and nodded down at the wheelchair. “They’ve said I can take Danny up to visit. I’m pretty concerned about how he’s gonna handle it though.”

 

Lou lowered his voice further still. “He had another breakdown?”

 

Chin shook his head. “No. He’s barely said two words since he came round again… but he’s still mildly sedated. He’s just… he’s so… just not like himself, you know? I don’t know what’s going on in his head and I’m not sure he does either.”

 

Lou pursed his lips, considering his words.“It’s hardly surprising after what’s happened, is it? That’s not an experience you just jump back from.”

 

Chin shrugged minutely, then sighed tiredly and closed his eyes, his posture screaming defeat.

 

Lou grabbed his shoulder with a big, gentle hand. “You want me to take him up?”

 

Chin opened his eyes again, shot him a faint, grateful smile. “Thanks, Lou, but no. I’ll do it for him. I want to be there... For both of them.”

 

Lou accepted his response with no argument save for a rueful smile of his own in response. “Okay. Okay, I get it." He squeezed Chin's shoulder once and let his hand drop, his own shoulders slumping under the weight of their situation.  "Man, what a fucking mess.”

They were all in shock at what had happened, all struggling to take it in, struggling to know how to deal with it. But underneath the confusion and despair, there was in all of them raw, fierce determination.  Determination to do what they could to help their friends and to bring Aiden Hesse to justice. Neither of them were going to rest until that happened.

“Hey," Lou straightened back up, blowing out a quick, decisive breath.  "I need to get going. I’m still working on Interpol but I needed to see how things were going. I’ll be back later, okay? Let you get away, get some shuteye. Let me know how it goes.”

 

Chin held Lou’s gaze and smiled briefly. “Thanks Lou.” He stood there in the corridor, watching Grover's retreating form, then returned his gaze to Danny’s door. He let out a nervous sigh. ‘What a fucking mess’? That was an understatement. 

 

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Danny watched the overhead lighting pass by slowly above him as Chin wheeled him towards the Intensive Care Unit. Towards Steve. Bright-dull, bright-dull, bright-dull. It was hypnotic. He felt heavy, the sedative he’d been given making him numb, making everything seem distant. He had to stay calm, the doctor had said. If he wanted to be allowed to visit a high-dependency patient, he had to be quiet and composed.

 

He watched the lights, tried not to think, because composed was not how he felt. Smoldering beneath the drugged haze were raw, stomach wrenching guilt and complete and total confusion. _Those_ were what he felt. Flashes of inescapable blackness and echoes of his partner’s screams as Danny tried and failed to help him.  Of the lost, lonely figure of the long-dead boy standing by and looking on... those were what he saw whenever he closed his eyes.

He blinked as he was pushed through a doorway he had never even seen coming. They had arrived.

Chin wheeled him in, set his wheelchair carefully beside the bed.  Danny heard him moving around behind him, locking the brakes, felt Chin's hand on his shoulder as the man came around to face him.  He didn't acknowledge his teammate's presence, however, all of his attention focused on the disturbingly still figure that lay on the bed before him. 

 

Steve looked heart-wrenchingly small and fragile amidst the imposing tangle of life-sustaining equipment that snaked around his unresponsive form.His face, partially obscured by the tubes in his mouth and his nose, looked grayish pale and thin, the unhealthy tint made even more apparent by the dark fans of eyelashes splayed out inertly against the ashen skin.  There was no movement, no flutter, no twitch, save for rhythmic rise and fall of Steve's chest that coincided perfectly with the mechanical hiss of the machine pushing air in and out of his friend's lungs.

"We’ve got half an hour, brah. That’s all. But we can come back again, okay?”

Danny flinched at the gently murmured words, his heart twinging painfully at the prospect of abandoning Steve yet again.  But how could he explain that to Chin?  How could he possibly tell him that he was afraid to leave Steve, afraid to turn away, afraid to so much as _blink_ , lest his partner should disappear? 

He wanted, _needed_ to speak to Steve, to tell him they were safe, to beg him to hold on. To tell him that he was sorry. He opened his mouth but the words dried up. He reached out with his bandaged hands to grasp Steve's limp one, fingers hesitating for a long, long moment before he dared to make contact. And then he closed his eyes in utter misery because he couldn’t _feel_ it properly through his dressings. And what he did feel felt _wrong_. The hand seemed cold, seemed almost ethereally light and once more he doubted himself, doubted his own senses.

 

It was all so much like his dream, so much like the waking nightmare he had lived through that he suddenly found himself right back in that bunker, Steve's cold, cold body gripped with desperate denial between his numb, trembling hands, the black iciness of their stifling prison moving closer and closer with every frantic beat of his heart.

He shivered, hard, his whole body shaking, then pressed Steve's limp hand against his cheek and almost cried out loud because there was no denying the cold clamminess he felt then. His eyes welled.

 

He knew Chin’s hand was on his shoulder and felt like he should speak, like he should ask the right questions, should try to seem _normal,_ try to act like he was really _there_. His tongue felt thick and dry in his mouth.  He licked his lips.  "What are they saying now?" he asked, voice hoarse and fractionally slurred. "The doctors, what are they saying?"

"Danny–"  There was an oddly pleading note of warning in Chin's voice that just made Danny grip Steve's hand that much harder.

"What's his prognosis, Chin?" he ground out, his trembling growing worse the longer his teammate hesitated with a response. 

There was a heavy sigh, then Chin squatted down beside him, hand on Danny's thigh.  "They still aren't... sure," he hedged, and Danny heard the weariness, the despondency in his voice."They repaired the damage the stake caused to his intestines and now they’re trying to deal with the sepsis. They’re monitoring his organ function to see what damage has been done, and they’re trying to bring the infection under control. He isn't responding to treatment as well as they would have liked."  Chin sighed again, squeezing Danny's leg lightly."Medically, they're doing all they can.  It's up to Steve now, and they...uh..."  Chin clamped his mouth shut momentarily, his lips – a thin, pale line, then flicked a dark, anguished gaze at the man in bed.  "...I guess they don't think he's got much left to fight with."

Chin's last words were barely audible, a feeble whisper strained with exhaustion and worry, but to Danny they roared louder than a clap of thunder above his head.  He ground his teeth into his bottom lip, dully acknowledging the familiar, metallic tang of blood that welled against his tongue.

"He fought, Chin..." The words stumbled and quavered as they fell from his lips, limp and frigid like the hand he held against his skin.  "He fought so hard.  For me.  Because I asked him to.  Because I couldn't bear..."  He trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut as a rush of gut-twisting memories assaulted his mind: of Steve's body, rigid and trembling under the onslaught of pain, of Steve's fingers tugging weakly at his own as he struggled to stay conscious, to be there for Danny, of Steve's halting, gossamer-thin voice as he breathed out his final words of apology, words of love.  "He was so weak... in so much pain... And I... G-god..." He choked on a sob, fingers spasming around Steve's hand. 

Chin squeezed his leg again in a silent show of support and Danny bit his lip harder still, fighting the urge to shake off his friend's hand, because this was wrong, this was all wrong.  Chin shouldn't be offering him comfort.  He didn't need it, didn't _deserve_ it.  Not after he–

"I _abandoned_ him, Chin!" he all but shouted, daring to open his eyes once more, to meet Chin's gaze.  And nearly choked at the intensity of emotion he saw there, at the depth of pain and guilt that echoed his own.  He blinked, fighting against a steadily growing burn of tears, dropped his eyes back down to settle on the slack, deathly pale face of his partner.  "I wanted to stay with him," he murmured, his watery gaze riveted to the unconscious man, " _needed_ to stay with him, but I was so terrified of feeling the exact moment when he would let go, of... of feeling him die..." He sucked in a breath, ragged and tear-stained, his face twisting into a mask of horrified realization.  "God, Chin, what if... what if I did it _on purpose_?  What if I left him just so I wouldn't have to watch him die?  What kind of a monster does that make me?  I–"

"Danny, stop.  Stop!"  Both of Chin's hands were on him now, strong fingers digging into his skin with painful, insistent pressure.  "You know you would never have abandoned Steve like that.  It just wouldn't happen.  Not under any circumstances!  You _know_ it, Danny!" 

 

Danny huffed ruefully, feeling another tear slide down his cheek.  "I can't be sure of anything right now.  I... I don't even know what's real anymore," he finished, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Hey. Hey! What do you mean?" 

 

Danny registered the confusion and concern in his friend’s gentle voice and realized with a shock that he shouldn’t have said that, because he couldn’t let on how fucked up he was, he couldn’t mention the dead boy _again_. But then a strong hand was grasping his chin, forcing him to look up.  Danny refused, stubbornly keeping his eyes downcast and his lips sealed. 

 

Chin let out a breath and released him. "Look, it’s okay," he placated."You’ve been through one hell of an ordeal. You’re still weak and remember there’s several drugs working in your system right now. It’s only natural you should feel confused. But trust me. _I'm_ real, Danny. I'm real. I am. This place here is real.  _Steve_ is real.  Real and alive.  Because of you."

 

Danny shook his head in denial. "I left him," he choked out, tears closing up his throat.  "I went to work on that damn wall... I should've known it was pointless, that I wasn't gonna get anywhere, that.... I should have stayed with him, Chin.  I should have... I left him to die alone!"

"He isn't dead, Danny," Chin objected quietly, his fingers digging harder into Danny's skin as if to pull him away from those dark thoughts, to pull him back into the present.  “You did what you had to do. You kept fighting. Steve would understand that. He would have done the exact same thing.”

Danny merely shook his head because it didn't matter, nothing anyone said could change his mind.  What he had done was unforgivable.  And maybe the reason that Steve was having such a difficult time fighting now was because on some level he had known that Danny hadn't been there, had abandoned him.  That maybe _he_ was the reason that Steve had given up.

Some less irrational part of his brain squeaked in protest, arguing that this was absurd, but Danny refused to listen. He hunched over in his wheelchair, tears of sorrow and remorse now streaming freely and unheeded down his cheeks.Too weak and devastated to try to pretend to be normal any longer, he gave in to the pull of the numbing haze of drugs and sat quietly, eyes open and unfocused, mind trapped in that cold, black bunker.

He shivered once more, feeling inexplicably colder all of a sudden, and gasped softly as he felt a familiar gaze lock onto him in the darkness of his mind, one he hadn’t felt since he’d gone down at the top of those cold, hard steps. The boy! He was here, beside him, his icy presence raising the hairs on the back of his neck.And it felt real! Every bit as real as anything else in that fucking room. He felt _relieved_ and he had no idea why. He closed his eyes, trying to _think_ past the fog in his mind.Had the boy been with Steve all along? Why...  what was he doing here?  How did he _get_ here? Had he followed them here out of curiosity or was he purposely waiting for Steve, waiting for him to die, biding his time until Steve could join him in the hereafter?

Danny shook his head minutely.  He didn't know the answers to any of those questions, and it didn't really matter. Whatever the ghost's intentions, he was _here_ , with Steve, watching just like he had back there in the bunker. 

 

Then Danny chuffed out a high pitched little laugh at his situation, not just because he was blindly accepting the existence of a ghost, but because a part of him was absurdly grateful towards the fucking thing for staying by his partner’s side when he had failed to.And maybe Danny was crazy for thinking like that, maybe his mind was well and truly lost, but right then he just didn't care. 

 

The only thing he cared about, the only thing that mattered was that he needed Steve to live.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

Steve was tired.   So, _so_ tired.The pulsating sphere of blinding white light that split the darkness and pushed the monsters away, the promise of deliverance from the eternal darkness that had swathed him in heart-rending nightmares, throwing them over and over at his exhausted mind, sapping his strength and whittling away his soul – it was right there in front of him, a hair's breadth away from his trembling fingers.  And he wanted to get to it, _desperately_. But something had stopped him, was _still_ stopping him, pulling him back.  And no matter how hard he fought to break free of the unseen force that held him in its grip, no matter how hard he tried to reach the warmth and safety of the glowing orb, he couldn't, couldn't even skim his fingertips across its inviting surface.

The agony of physical pain that he had endured for so long had exhausted him, wiped him out.  The even more excruciating emotional torture, the bitter, heart-searing knowledge that he had lost the only thing that mattered – his friend, his brother...  _Danny_ – had destroyed him.   He simply had nothing left to give. 

 

The light of the sphere dulled as if in response to his fruitless struggle, and he sagged, defeated, moaning in utter frustration at his weakness.  An instant later the light flickered out altogether and the moan turned into a desperate howl of denial that became lost in the stifling darkness that descended upon him once more with a promise of more pain to come.

 

And the pain was not long in returning. 

The tortuously familiar, searing agony ripped through his gut the moment the sphere faded away.  He cried out, breathless, his trembling body folding in on itself, taking him heavily down onto his knees.  The cold, the desperate fear and the inescapable agony of loss – it all came back too, with a vengeance, and he whined miserably at the unforgiving onslaught.

It made sense, he mused bitterly.  He was not deserving of the salvation of death – not for the pain and suffering he had caused to those dearest to him, for failing his friend, for being too weak to rescue him.  He supposed the punishment of enduring this torment, of hovering on the very precipice of the welcome oblivion without ever being able to cross over, was his to bear.Perhaps he should accept it, he thought, suffer this burden as he was meant to do, for all eternity.   

 

No, _no_! A spark of protest stirred inside him, weakly indignant. It wasn’t fair. He’d done bad things, sure, but he wasn't a bad man.  He's paid his dues, he's done his best to help those around him.  Did he really deserve to suffer like this forever? He wanted the light back! Whatever was holding him back, preventing him from finding peace… he wanted, _needed_ it broken!

 

Maybe if he concentrated hard enough? Maybe the light would come back?  He hung his head, breathing hard through the pain, sweat dripping from the end of his nose.  He forced himself to block it all out, forced his mind to fix on one thing.

 

_"Stop!"_

He started at the unfamiliar voice, his heartbeat ratcheting up as he raised his head to peer uselessly into the surrounding blackness.  "Who's there? Who's there!"

There was silence, long and oppressive, and then the inky shadows parted, revealing a small figure of a child, pale and thin, with flaming red hair and the eyes, wide and tearful, the color of a morning sky. 

 

Steve gaped at him, his mind churning.  "Y-you... Danny talked about you," he gasped, then faltered, suddenly unsure, "It was you he saw... wasn't it?"

The boy continued to stare at him, silent and pleading, and Steve had a sudden impression that the boy was waiting for him to speak, to say the right thing, unable somehow to tell him what he needed without invitation, without a gentle prompt. 

He blew out a weary breath then, bowing his head again, blanking the strange intrusion.  He was too tired for these mind games that darkness insisted on playing with him, and he was almost sure now that this was nothing more than yet another one of his fevered hallucinations, here to torture him in some other novel way.  Danny had told him about the boy and his mind was inventing the image. It was as simple as that.

"What do you want?" he huffed out, indifferent, and started in shock at the unexpected response.

 

_"He needs you.  Please don't let go."_ The words were blurted out abruptly, as though the young voice had only found just enough courage to speak and still feared the repercussions.

****

"Who?" he inquired sharply, looking up once more to pin the boy with his stare, unwilling to find sympathy for something that simply couldn’t be real.And growled in frustration when the latter responded with silence once again.  "Don't talk in riddles!  Tell me!"

The boy flinched back, the blue eyes growing even wider, and Steve bit his lip in regret despite himself.  "I'm sorry," he whispered, contrite, feeling an inexplicable need to comfort this child, even if it _was_ nothing more than an apparition brought forth from the blackest recesses of the surrounding darkness.  "I didn't mean... I'm just tired.  I'm sorry."

The boy nodded, hesitant, then flicked a worried gaze somewhere past Steve.  _"I want to go home,"_ he whimpered, tears spilling forth from the bright red eyelashes. _"I’m scared. If you go, I think... I think he’ll go too, and I’ll be alone again. Please."_ He sniffled, crying in earnest now.  _"I don't want to be alone anymore.  Please!"_

****

Steve blinked at him helplessly.  "What do you mean ‘he’ll go’? I don't under–," he began and stopped, flabbergasted, as the boy glanced behind Steve once more, motioning for him to follow suit.   Steve turned his head obediently and froze, open-mouthed and breathless at the scene that opened up before him. ****

He could see _himself_ , lying still and deathlike in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines that forced life into his weary, unwilling body.  And there was Danny, hunched painfully in a wheelchair next to his motionless form, bandaged hands grasping Steve's own with a desperation of a drowning man grasping at a sinking raft.   _Danny!  Alive!_

****

"Is this..."  His breath cut out momentarily, the hope suddenly too much.  "Is it real?  Is he really... He's alive?"

The boy nodded, his gaze intense, expectant, as if he was waiting for Steve to say something.  To _do_ something? 

 

Steve shook his head, his lips pulling into a small, thankful smile.  "They found us," he murmured, feeling the weight of heart-ripping guilt roll off his shoulders for the first time in what seemed like forever.  "He's alive... Danny's alive."

 

_"Please stay. Please stay so he stays too.  I'm... I'm scared."_

Steve shrugged minutely, his eyes never leaving his partner's pale, bruised face.  _Is he what's been holding me back_ , he wondered absently, his gaze sliding to the hand held tightly in Danny's grip.  He should stay. If Danny was alive, he should stay, there was a good reason for him to… But he was so, so tired. Danny would be okay. Their friends would take care of Danny, he was sure of it.  They wouldn't let Danny down, not like he had. What if he were to pull back just a bit...?  Could he sever that link, could he rediscover that peaceful escape…?

 

"I'm tired," he whispered, as if trying to justify to himself his own impending actions.  "I just want to rest."

_"He needs you!"_  

 

The panic now registering in the boy’s tone made Steve look back at him, frowning.

 

_"You let go now, and so does he."_

Steve wavered in disbelieving hesitation, his hand itching with the desire to pull away, to break the fragile connection that kept him tethered to this plane, to finally allow himself to rest.  "He'll be okay," he whispered stubbornly.  Because he needed to believe it, because anything else would simply be unacceptable.  "He's safe now.  He'll be okay." 

 

He let his eyes slide closed and sank slowly the rest of the way to the ground, allowing himself to lie on his side and rest. He felt his body begin to shut down, felt it give in to the irresistible pull of oblivion with its tantalizing promise of no more pain.

_"DON'T!"_ the boy cried out, and Steve jerked in surprise as the boy's ice-cold fingers grasped at his hand, forcing him to open his eyes once more, to focus in sluggish confusion on the panicked blue eyes. _"He will_ not _be okay if you leave! He will_ never _be okay!  And he’ll leave me too… Please... Please I want to go home. PLEASE!  I'll... I have no one to help me."_

****

The boy's grip on his hand grew colder and more painful with each word, until he let go abruptly and stood back, staring at Steve with his wide, accusing eyes, pale lips quivering with poorly suppressed tears.   _"Look at him,"_ he begged.  _"Please."_

****

Steve could feel himself slipping away, feel peace coming to him and God he wanted that so badly… but he complied, letting his gaze settle once more on his partner.  He looked more carefully this time around, noting all the little details that he had missed, had glossed over in his relief at seeing Danny alive.  Danny's face, drawn and haggard, exhausted, like he hadn't slept in weeks.  The tracks of tears, both old and new, that stained his pale cheeks.  The defeated slump of his shoulders.  Danny's eyes, hollow and haunted and so un-Danny-like it made Steve's heart clench in mournful anguish even as the intensity of his emotional and physical agony began to fade as he felt himself slowly letting go.

And then Danny tensed suddenly, startling from his listless pose as if he'd sensed something, as if he'd felt somehow that Steve was beginning to slip away. 

 

He watched Danny's head snap up to the monitors beside the bed, watched his face twist with horror, his mouth opening in a hoarse, desperate scream of denial.  He watched as Danny’s wheelchair was yanked backwards, away from the bed, away from _Steve_ , by one of the faceless white-clad figures that descended upon Steve's own resigned form in a flurry of frantic activity.  Watched his partner push himself up on shaking feet, watched him sway feebly, before sinking heavily to his knees, staring before him with wide, unseeing eyes.  Watched Danny's body shudder, curling in on itself.  Flinched at the low keening sound that slipped past his partner's bloodless lips like the wail of a mortally wounded animal.

_"He won't survive without you,_ please, _I need someone to help me,"_ the boy repeated, desperate, and Steve shuddered involuntarily, feeling his heart lurch painfully with the truth of those words.  _"You need to hang on for him.  Please."_

He blinked, finding his own eyes strangely water-blurred and nodded, because it was all suddenly so clear to him _-_ he _couldn’t_ just let go, he _had_ to try to fight. Past the exhaustion, past the pain.  He had to fight.  He _had_ to! He didn’t know about the boy, didn’t know how he was supposed to help him… but Danny… never _in a million years_ could he allow himself to be the reason that Danny gave up.

But he didn’t know how, he didn’t know what he was meant to do! He felt the white glow building again around him, knew it had come back to take him and he shook his head, trying to turn away from it, trying to get back to his feet, trying to stay, but its pull was stronger now, more insistent, and he feared that he was just too late!

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Yeah, this was maybe the trickiest one… tell us what you thought…. Please review (and they duck down and hide and really, really wish they had remembered to bring alcohol with them).


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Well thank you all so much for electing to join us down our rabbit hole rather than throw sticks and stones and ridicule our way. Have we ever told you that we love you?
> 
> Here have an extra-long chapter as a heartfelt thank you.

 

**CHAPTER 16**

 

Danny pressed his forehead against the cool tile of the bathroom wall. His body ached from head to foot, the results of Hesse’s abuse still evident seven days on in his yellowing bruises, his bandaged hands and his drug-numbed mind. He could hear soft voices outside, knew on some level he should go out, try to act normal.

But he needed Steve. He needed to be _with_ him. _Now._

 

He screwed his eyes shut against the inevitable onslaught of memories: the sudden blast of cold, cold air that froze his breath, made him gasp in shock.  The desperate wail of alarms, the hurried, frantic activity around Steve's bed, the urgent, barked out words that reeked of hopelessness. Steve had nearly died. Again. His partner had nearly lost his life for a second time. Even in his devastated panic, Danny hadn’t missed the exchanged looks of astonishment between the doctors who’d rushed to help Steve when he had crashed… because they just barely managed to get him back. Because it had been _that_ close.

 

Now Steve was still weak and sick and comatose… but he seemed to be fighting again like he had always fought before, improving by the tiniest amount each day.

 

Steve's long fingers now twitched periodically in Danny’s hand whenever Danny was allowed up to sit with him, whenever he was allowed to hold them. And Danny liked to think that Steve knew somehow on some level that Danny was there and that it was Steve's way of reaching out to him, of letting him know that he was there too.  Steve's eyes, those intense steel blues that Danny had missed so much, moved restlessly, concealed beneath the long-lashed eye-lids. Steve’s organs, closely monitored from the start, were functioning

acceptably, his body coping with its static existence on its own. He had even been weaned off the vent and was breathing unassisted. His physical recovery was apparently nothing short of astonishing.

 

But the demon question of brain damage remained because Steve _hadn’t_ been breathing when they found him. His heart _hadn’t_ been beating. He was, for all intents and purposes, dead.  It _couldn’t_ have been for long or they would never have gotten him back… but was it seconds? Minutes? Every moment would make a difference to the ultimate outcome. And whether he would ever awake fully, whether he would still be _Steve_ if he did… the doctors couldn’t say.

 

Danny didn’t dare to hope, couldn't afford to feel any measure of relief. He couldn’t pull himself out of the black spiral in his mind. He felt so vague and distant. The cocktail of tranquilizers and anti-depressants he’d been prescribed might be stopping him from having some kind of meltdown, but they certainly didn’t help him to be sure of what was real and was not.

 

The doctor had told him he had PTSD. The doctor had told him the drugs would help in time, that along with counseling they would help settle the nerves, lessen the persistent feeling of still being there in the darkness, quash the all-encompassing guilt, the need to be with his partner all the time. 

 

Danny shook his head a little. He had no idea if that was right, maybe it _was_ right. But for all he was having real trouble organizing his thoughts, for all he was still freaked out and shaken as hell, he was convinced there was more to it than PTSD. He couldn’t write it _all_ off. Some of this shit he _should_ be feeling. He _should_ feel guilty after what he had done. There was nothing that needed fixed about that. And more than that, he was increasingly convinced that Steve genuinely needed him, that he should be _with_ him. The latest episode scared the shit out of him, and even though the doctors assured him that Steve appeared to have finally turned the corner and was slowly gaining ground, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he had to look out for him, that he shouldn’t be leaving him like he was. Being kept away, kept to strict visiting times, was _killing_ him.

 

But then there was the _other_ thing, the thing that still made him question his own sanity when he allowed himself to think about it too deeply, that made him wonder whether the rescue had ever really happened or if in actual fact he was still in that bunker, hallucinating as he slowly died. The third presence in his partner’s room. The one he only felt when he was at Steve’s side in ICU, the one he didn’t dare tell anyone about for fear of getting himself locked up in a psych ward. The red haired boy.

 

He hadn’t _seen_ him there, but he sure as hell could _feel_ him and his constant presence by Steve’s side was an inexplicable source of comfort to Danny.

 

The boy felt more real than _this_ , than the bathroom, than the hard tile, than the smell of disinfectant. Than Kono’s sweet smile, than Chin’s stoic reassurance, than Grover’s terrible jokes… even than the freely-given cuddles from his own beautiful, beautiful children. The boy felt real… and Danny _wanted_ him to be real. He wanted him to be with Steve in a way that Danny simply couldn’t. He wanted to know Steve didn’t think he was still alone, trapped in the black, black bunker, abandoned by Danny and left to die. He needed it to be true and he was letting himself believe it.

 

Danny turned his head slightly, his gaze fixing on the light-switch beside him. His hand moved of its own accord, sliding over to it, bandaged fingers resting on its angular shape. He hesitated for a mere fraction of a second, questioning his own need to put himself through this hell over and over and over again in search of the truth. He dreaded the dark with every fiber of his being, his pre-existing claustrophobia having twisted into something he didn’t yet understand… but he truly felt that Steve was still trapped somewhere in that darkness, just like the boy was, and somehow he needed to be in that same darkness too.

 

He felt as though if he switched off the lights and closed his eyes enough times, he might finally see them both for all his partner lay two floors above him. The darkness might take him to wherever they _actually_ were. Maybe he would feel the chill of the stale air, smell the sourness of impending death and find himself lying right where he had fallen behind Hesse’s wall. He might open his eyes to the familiar black nothingness, then make his way down the worn concrete steps to his partner, because he had left him there alone and that was unforgivable. He would find his way to Steve and the boy who felt real and nothing else but darkness. He would really be _with_ them.

 

It made no sense, none of it made sense at all, and he should _fear_ the concept of revisiting that utter hell… yet it seemed the only thing keeping him going when he wasn’t by his partner’s side.

 

He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and flicked the switch, plunging the room into darkness yet again.

 

Forehead pressed hard once more against the wall, he made himself keep breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, refusing to panic. He felt what he always felt, for all he was damn sure it was just in his head. He felt the walls close in on him, felt the temperature plummet, felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He forced his eyes open, saw the black nothing in front of him.

 

“Steve,” he hissed through gritted teeth, praying his partner could hear him. “I’m here, Steve.  I'm here now, and I need you to fight for me, babe.  Please, please fight.  I’m so sorry I left you, but I'm not leaving anymore.  Gonna be right here.  Please, babe.  Please, please, please.  Fight...”

He blew out three long, carefully controlled breaths before addressing the dead, unseen boy for the very first time. “Look after him. Please.”

 

A bead of sweat ran down his face. The panic started to rise, slowly, inexorably, breaths coming faster and faster. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, trying to push it back down again, trying to stop the spiral, trying to keep his head….

 

It was too much.  He flicked on the light and snapped his eyes open once more, panting hard.  "It's okay, it's okay," he murmured to himself, turning his head and letting his gaze roam hectically around the brightly-lit enclosure before stopping on his own pale, wild-eyed reflection in the mirror.  "You're okay."

****

He exhaled slowly, closed his eyes, and placed his trembling finger on the switch once more, psyching himself up to try again.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

Kono leant her head back against the pristine white wall of Danny’s hospital room and closed her eyes, utterly exhausted. She shifted a little, struggling to get comfortable in the rigid plastic seat, then gave up and sighed. She desperately needed to rest but none of them, not she, nor Chin, nor Lou were comfortable leaving Danny on his own, not yet.  

 

She glanced at the bathroom door, eyes running down to the narrow gap at the base, to the sliver of artificial light she could see. She checked her watch. Five minutes. He’d only been in there five minutes. She wasn’t allowed to worry yet.

 

The door to Danny's room opened and she looked up to see Chin strolling in, a hesitant, forced smile on his handsome face. The smile dropped away when he saw that the room's main resident wasn't there. Cheery façade no longer required, it evaporated instantly leaving behind worry, strain and exhaustion to match her own.

 

“Hey Cuz. Where is he? I’ve got something to show him, thought it might interest him,” he said, waving a folder in the air.

 

Kono nodded her head tiredly towards the closed bathroom door.

 

Chin glanced towards it. “He okay?”

 

She shrugged uncertainly, then gestured for Chin to come closer before speaking to him in a low voice. “Same. Won’t say much other than to tell me to go home, he’d rather be alone. Rachel and the kids were in an hour ago and he played the Danno role to perfection, but….”  She trailed off, waving her hand in the air in a helpless, vague gesture before letting it drop back into her lap.

Chin pulled up a chair and sat down heavily beside her, then leant his head back against the wall, mirroring Kono’s position. “I know," he acknowledged with a grim sigh, "It’s just that- a role. It’s like he’s not quite here. The only thing he wants to do is sit with Steve and that can’t happen as long as Steve’s still in ICU.”

 

Kono nodded. “And…," she paused, biting her lip in hesitation, then plunged ahead, "I just have the strangest feeling. The way he's holding himself sometimes, the way he talks... it's like... he's too controlled, like... like he’s hiding something, like he’s scared of letting something slip." She flicked an uncertain gaze at her cousin as if trying to gauge his reaction.  Chin's face gave nothing away, however, only grew a shade darker at her words.  Kono sighed, shrugging to herself.  "It’s maybe my imagination. I hate to think Danny might not feel like he's able to talk to us about anything after all we’ve been through together.”

 

Chin let out a long breath, then glanced cautiously towards the bathroom door. “No," he admitted softly, "I know what you mean." Then he shook himself, visibly struggling to find some solid ground to grab on to. "Maybe it's all the emotional stress he's under," he tried, giving Kono a half-hearted smile of reassurance, "He's still terrified Steve isn’t going to make it, and I know he’s feeling guilty- maybe it’s just as simple as that. It’s gonna take a while, cuz, it’s only been a week. PTSD is a bitch. And there’s no quick fix. The anti-depressants they’ve put him on can take weeks to kick in properly and it could still be an uphill battle from there." He closed his eyes for a moment, strain evident on his face.  "I guess a lot of it hangs on Steve coming out of this. Maybe all of it. Talking of which… any more news?”

 

Kono shook her head, swallowing down a lump of ever-present worry, then glanced at her watch. “The next allocated visiting time is in twenty minutes. Mary Ann took Danny up with her earlier but she’s not coming back until tomorrow now so I was going to take him…  and I _want_ to, I do, but...” She paused, chuffed out a nervous little laugh that felt all wrong to her ears. “Cuz, it’s just still so hard seeing Steve like that. He’s usually so strong and… I just....” she trailed off, biting her lip.

 

Chin laid a hand on her arm, warm and steady. “Hey, he _is_ still strong. It's McGarrett we're talking about.  The man's as stubborn as they come.He’s improving, right?  He's gonna get through this.  Okay?”

 

Kono nodded brusquely but the lump was back in her throat and she found herself unable to respond. She bit her lip again, hard.

 

“Look," Chin's hand tightened on her arm and he ducked his head slightly, meeting her troubled gaze with a tired but steady one of his own, "I’ll take Danny up. You go home, take a shower, go surf, do what you need to get your mind off of this.Clear your head. Okay?”

Kono moved to object and he raised his free hand, silencing her. "Don’t feel guilty, okay.  You just need a break, that’s all. This stuff here... it's intense!  A bit of time off will do you good.”  Chin followed up his sage advice with a quick though mirthless smile.

 

And Kono couldn't help but smile lightly in response, feeling immensely grateful to him for his understanding.

 

 “Go on." Chin gave her a friendly shove.  "Go! I’ll check on Danny. Go before I change my mind.”

 

Kono leaned toward him on impulse, pulling him into a fierce, almost desperate hug. “Thanks cuz," she murmured, heartfelt, before pulling away to straighten back up.  "I’ll be back later, okay?” Kono glanced towards the bathroom door again, then did a double take. Her eyes filled with tears. “He’s doing the thing with the light again.” she whispered, her voice trembling in sync with her lips.

 

Chin's face darkened ever so slightly and he gritted his teeth, patted her arm. “I know. Go. I’ve got it.”

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

“Danny? You alright in there?”

 

Danny’s eyes jerked open, his heart pounding in shock. He pulled back sharply from the cold, tile wall, grunting at the resultant pain in his ribs. His new perspective brought patterns of light in the blackness into focus, the light from under the door reflecting on the repetitive square surface in lines and angles that were inexplicably bewildering to his befuddled mind. Dazed, he panted for breath, then scrabbled for the light-switch once more, flicking it back on.

 

There was a soft knock at the door, then Chin's familiar voice came again.  “Danny? Say something, brah, or I’m coming in.”

 

Danny coughed, trying to find his voice. “M’good,” he choked out. He turned, pressed his back to the wall and stared up at the light. He was still in the bathroom. Of course he was still in the bathroom. What the hell was he even doing? Self-doubt crept back into his mind. He was standing in the dark in a fucking bathroom trying to talk to his partner and a fucking _ghost_. The doctor had to be right. PTSD. It was messing with his head, big time. Either that or he was ready for a nice padded room and a straitjacket.

The door opened anyway, and Chin’s concerned face appeared around the frame. “Danny? You okay, brah?”

Danny nodded, lips pursed, determined to give nothing away.

 

Chin stared at him for a few moments, empathic dark eyes calculating. “Okay," he decided finally, nodding at something in his own thoughts.  "Okay. You ready to come out then? Kono took off for a bit so you’re stuck with me now but I’ve got something to show you… if you’re up to it.” He turned and walked back out of the bathroom without further preamble.

 

Danny stared at Chin’s retreating back, hesitating, then hobbled painfully after him, feeling weak as a kitten. He sank down on the side of his bed, staring blankly as Chin dragged his chair over beside him and flipped open a file. He turned it around, passed it to Danny.

 

“Here," he said, watching Danny's reaction like a hawk.  "I thought this might interest you. We’re all busy with your case but Jerry, of course, is fixated on the mystery of the skeleton in the bunker. It’s right up his alley and he thinks he might have found out something.”

 

Danny glanced at the old newspaper clipping at the front of the file then did a double take, staring in wide-eyed disbelief at the tiny photo at the bottom of it. It was the boy. It was _him_. The photo was small and blurred and black and white, but it was _him_. He nearly blurted it out, but he stopped himself just in time because it would sound crazy. Crazier than crazy. He bit his lip, _hard_.

 

Chin spoke again, voice soft, cautious. “So it looks like this could be our vic. This is Keiran Quinn, born 01.26.1943, went missing Christmas 1954 after going hiking with a friend in the forest where the Ehukai Trail is now. Extensive searches were carried out but he was never found.”

 

Chin pulled an object out of his pocket and Danny’s eyes widened as he took in the compass he’d found in the bunker. He’d forgotten all about it.

 

“Recognize this? It had your prints on it so we’re assuming you found it. We're also assuming it’s associated with the skeleton. The initials engraved inside it fit, the date fits. Jerry’s trying to track down living relatives so, hopefully, Max will be able to get DNA confirmation of the familial link.”

 

“Wh-what happened to him?” Danny stammered out, staring in dry-mouthed shock at the compass in Chin’s hand.

 

Chin glanced back down at his notes.“Cause of death was a broken neck," he reported, returning his gaze to Danny's face.  "He was in a shallow grave in the bunker. The trap Hesse dug was right beside it, so when it collapsed the remains were finally revealed. It was pure fluke. But what actually happened to the boy… that we don’t know."  He pursed his lips, regretful.  "Anyone involved would be pretty old by now, if they’re even still alive."  Then his face brightened, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips.  "Jerry’s still working on it, though, and you know how he gets when there's a mystery to uncover. I'm sure he'll have something more for us in no time." 

 

Danny ignored his teammate's attempt at levity, staring unblinking at the blurry picture, his head spinning. The boy _was_ real.He was.  And Danny wasn’t totally crazy after all. _He was real_. Danny choked out a laugh, incredulous. He needed to go back up to Steve’s room. _Now_. He needed to be with Steve, to feel the presence of the boy again. The boy who was _real._

 

“I- I need to see Steve,” Danny stuttered. “I-is it time?”

 

Chin glanced at his watch. “Nearly. We’ll head up in five minutes, okay?”

 

Danny sucked in a sharp breath, buried his head in his hands. “ _Fuck.”_

A firm hand landed on his shoulder, squeezed hard. “Danny, come on. Just five minutes. Remember, he’s doing good okay? He’s fighting. It’s hard that we can’t be with him all the time, I feel it too, brah! But meantime you’ve got to trust the doctors, trust the nurses. We have to believe he’s gonna be okay and you need to try to relax and let us help you too. You hear me?”

 

Danny squeezed his eyes shut in response, struggling to know what to say without setting himself up to be shot down in flames, to be written off as insane. He tried for half of the truth.  “I know," he forced out, voice hoarse to the point of breaking.  "I’m trying Chin and I can’t even explain it but I fucked up so badly in the bunker and I just need to be there, I just have to make up for what happened. I just need _be there_ , I need to look out for them.”  The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think them over, and he froze when he realized what he’d said.

 

He felt the sudden tension in the hand that lay on his shoulder, felt Chin staring at him.

 

“Danny," Chin's voice was controlled, _too_ controlled, "who’s ‘them’?”

 

Danny sucked in an audible breath, naked horror closing up his throat, then shook his head, hard. “ _Him_ ," he choked out hurriedly, risking a glance at his teammate.  "I meant _him_.”

 

Chin's brows pulled together, eyes dark and intense.“That’s... not what you said, brah,” he objected carefully, and the look on his face… the concern and confusion… it hit Danny hard and _God,_ what if he was wrong, what if he was imagining the whole thing, what if it really _was_ the trauma of the ordeal messing up his thoughts… But the boy in the picture… _he knew that face!_

 

Danny put his hands on his head, standing abruptly then grunting as the room swayed because he was still too fucking weak to move like that. “Fuck!” he exclaimed again, voice too high, too unsteady.

 

Then Chin was in front of him, both hands on his shoulders. “Danny, calm down, c’mon, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on with you, okay?”

 

Danny whimpered, actually whimpered. And what the actual fuck _was_ wrong with him?  And then the shakes started and suddenly he was trembling like a machine on overload. The words tumbled out of him in a confused, uncontrolled jumble and he wanted to stop himself but he just _couldn’t_. “The boy. _This_ boy.” He thrust a shaking hand towards the yellowing newspaper article. “He was there. The dead boy. Okay? So yes, so I sound fucking nuts, I get it, but, but he was watching us the whole fucking time and I thought it was _Hesse,_ I thought he had cameras in there, but I had this dream… or... _something_ and it was _this_ _boy_. And then I found the skull and I thought… maybe it was… it felt… _real_. And I let myself believe it and he started to _follow_ me. He _sat down beside_ me. And I _still_ feel him but only when I’m with Steve and I just thought I was… It… it feels _real_. It _is_ real… can it be?" He met Chin's eyes then for the longest of heartbeats, his gaze pleading, helplessly so.  "I mean… Chin, am I losing it?” He heard the waver in his own voice, recognized the ridiculousness of his own words and any confidence he might have mustered evaporated in an instant.

 

“Hey.” And the word was spoken so softly, so _carefully_ that Danny could have cried. Insane. Chin _knew_ he was insane, just like that. Not just traumatized, oh no, he was broken, he was _crazy_. One slip and he’d let it all come out and now _Chin knew_. Chin knew and it was all over for him.  He was screwed.He was panting in distress now, pain shooting through his damaged ribs.

 

Then Chin was shaking him by the shoulders, hard. “Hey, it’s okay. Take it easy. Danny, I’m not going to stand here and tell you you’re losing it. Hell, I'll be the first one to tell you that there are more things out there than we’ll ever understand." He paused, making sure he had Danny's attention, smiled in encouragement when Danny's desperate gaze momentarily locked on his again.  "But remember you were hurt and under an incredible amount of stress and _you still are_. I’m just saying don’t jump to conclusions. It could be you’ve seen this article before, HPD are bound to have a file on the disappearance and you maybe remembered it on some level. Your subconscious maybe made the link between your location and this missing persons case and just projected it in a strange way because you were under such duress. Right?”

 

Danny dropped his gaze and nodded slowly, eyes filled with doubt. He was _sure_ he hadn’t read that article before. He opened his mouth to say that but stopped, yet more doubt creeping in. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he _had_ heard the sad story before.  Somewhere, somehow.

 

Chin was looking at him expectantly, waiting to once again capture his unfocused gaze, but Danny couldn't, _wouldn't_ let him.

 

“Danny," Chin's hands tightened briefly, digging into his shoulders, before relaxing completely and falling away in limp surrender.  "Give yourself a break, man," he whispered, voice weary, although steady.  "I won't pretend to understand what’s going on here, not at all, but you gotta know we’re all here for you, always, no judgment. You got that? For you _and_ Steve. Always.”

 

Danny heard the heartfelt words and opened his mouth, intending to say ‘thank you’ or some shit like that, but nothing came out. His mind was stuck in a loop of anxiety and confusion and he stood there, stuck like a deer in the headlights, staring blankly down at his feet. He heard Chin sigh deeply and he knew, he just _knew_ his friend would be telling his doctor about this little episode. Trying to help him, trying to do what was best for him. Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_. He was going to get himself locked away in some psych ward and how the hell would he see Steve _then_? They’d never let him near him again!

 

Chin didn't say a word, however.  He simply stepped in closer to Danny and slung an arm around his shoulders, then steered him gently towards the wheelchair in the corner of the room.“Come on, let’s go see Steve. Your chariot awaits.”

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

 “Please, please, please.” Danny mouthed the word silently, over and over and over again as he sat clutching Steve’s limp hand. He stared at his gaunt face, watched his chest rise and fall over and over again, unassisted.  He let his gaze run over the tubes snaking around his best friend’s body, carrying fluids in and out of him as they tried to help him fight to live. He reveled for a moment in the simple fact that he was beside his partner right then, that he was with him where he should have been all along, even as he begged him to keep fighting, begged him to come back.

 

He stroked the back of Steve’s hand with his thumb and closed his eyes, let the darkness back willingly. It came for him, swift and voracious, and he felt the chill of the bunker, and _Steve_ , and the boy watching them both. _Keiran._ The boy had a name.  Danny mouthed the name too, playing the word across his lips, trying it out as if to see if it _sounded_ as right as it felt.  He felt cold breath on the back of his neck, and _that_ was something he hadn’t felt since the bunker. He smiled.

 

Keiran. The ghost. They’d been trapped in a bunker with a ghost by a madman. And the ghost had followed them to hospital. And now the ghost was looking after Steve.

 

Danny started to laugh as doubt and self-ridicule slammed into him again with the force of a sledgehammer. It was _crazy_ , none of it was possible, the ghost _had_ to be all in his head. It didn’t exist. He laughed louder and louder, gripping Steve’s hand tighter and tighter, then stopped abruptly, trembling. He stared at Steve, completely desperate.  He’d had _enough_. “Babe. Please,” he hissed. “They fixed you. Please come back. Please. I’m just, I’m fucking lost here, I don’t know what’s real and they all think I’m crazy and I’m just **…** I'm fucking lost.  I need you. _Please_. I need...”

There was no response and Danny closed his eyes again, despair washing over him like a tidal wave, choking off the rest of his plea.  He slumped down low, curling in on himself until his bleary head rested on the side of the bed.

 

The hand he was clutching so desperately twitched minutely within his grasp, cool fingers curling downwards to press against Danny's skin.

 

“Steve?!” Danny sat up with a jerk, his eyes flying to the pale face before him, breath bated.  He watched in awed disbelief as the long dark eyelashes fluttered weakly, straining with exhausted effort.  "Steve?" he tried again, gently squeezing the limp hand.  "Come on, babe," he urged, "come back to me."  And laughed through welling tears as those eyelashes parted finally and the familiar cobalt blues looked sluggishly back at him, bleary and unfocused.

 

Danny jumped to his feet, heart pounding at a hundred miles an hour, gripped by utter astonishment and knee-weakening relief. “Oh Jesus, _Steve._ It’s okay, you’re safe. Can you hear me?” he stammered out.  “CHIN! Chin! Get back in here.” He heard a sharp inhale then footsteps from just outside the room where Chin had retreated to give Danny space, or privacy, or to just fret about the pair of them in peace. Whatever. Danny didn’t turn, he only had eyes for his partner.

 

Steve blinked, sleep-clouded eyes looking at Danny with confusion, and Danny held his breath again as he waited for Steve to acknowledge him, waited for him to remember, all the while dreading that he would not. Steve's gaze shifted, running down Danny’s bruised face to the yellow and purple ligature marks on his neck, then to his bandaged hands. His eyes widened in shock, then dawning realization and his gaze jerked back to Danny’s.

 

He said nothing, not a word, but his expressive eyes spoke to Danny with crystal clarity. Love and trust and complete and utter relief. Steve’s mouth twitched, the tiniest hint of a smile on his lips.

 

“Hey,” whispered Danny, an answering smile splitting his face from ear to ear even as a tear ran down his cheek unnoticed, even as his fingers tightened almost involuntarily around Steve's hand.  He opened his mouth again, wanting to say so, so much more. Too much. Choked with emotion, he bit his lip. He gave in to the moment. Let himself smile with his partner, gaze into his bleary eyes.

“Steve! Good to see you, brah!”

 

 

Danny almost jumped at Chin’s shaky words, and looked up for an instant to see the Asian man beside him before his eyes were drawn inexorably back to his partner.

 

Steve looked towards Chin too, blue eyes lighting up in recognition. Then he peered round as if searching out someone else. His gaze returned to Danny’s, and there was a hint of a puzzled frown on his face. He opened his mouth, licked his lips slowly.

 

“What is it babe? What’s wrong?” Danny breathed, tension returning.

Then Steve’s lips were moving, forming the silent words. _“Where’s the boy?”_

****

Danny stuttered for a moment, his mind grinding to a shocked, disbelieving halt, then laughed out loud, because Steve was _back_ and he hadn’t said a word yet, but he _knew_ Danny and he _remembered_ what had happened and… and Danny wasn’t fucking crazy at all. _Steve had seen Keiran too._ Weak with gratitude and relief, he cupped Steve’s cheek gently with a trembling hand, just barely restraining himself from kissing the man.

 

Then he remembered with a start that Chin was right there, right beside him and he glanced up once more, heart beating out of his chest with a sudden need to know that he wasn't just imagining things, that Chin had read those words on Steve's lips too. The shocked expression on Chin’s face told him that he had.

Danny looked back down at Steve, squeezing his hand as tightly as he dared without actually hurting the man, then gave in to the overwhelming, intoxicating feeling of gratefulness that threatened to burst his swelling heart at the seams, leaned down and kissed Steve's forehead.  He let himself rest there for a moment, eyes squeezed shut.

 

“Still here, babe," he whispered against his partner's skin. "Can’t you feel him?”

**TBC**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N We tried to put some feels in there for ya- did you get them? Please review- let us know how we’re doing. (for we are STILL pathetic and needy even 16 chapters in).


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

 

Steve lay still and silent, his eyes closed. He smiled softly, reveling in the fact he could see _red_ , not black, through his eyelids as the soft sunlight gently warmed his face. The simple fact of being free of the bunker still felt new and astonishing and fantastic and it easily outweighed whatever lingering negativities he still felt over his injury and weakness and Aiden fucking Hesse. In the strangest of ways he felt amazing.

 

Slowly and carefully he drew a deep breath, wincing at the flare of pain the simple movement caused even through the blessedly numbing veil of drugs. It was worth it. The sun-warmed fresh air, the distant scent of plumeria and the sea **–** the familiar, soothing cocktail of fragrances that spoke of safety and tranquility and home **–** spread the feeling of well-being into his very soul as they wafted in through the open window of his hospital room.

 

He listened quietly as Danny read out some sports article or other to him, Steve wasn't really sure what it was about.  Danny could've been reciting stock tables, for all Steve wasn't really paying attention to the words.   His only focus was the _sound_ of his partner's voice – animated and amused and just a bit hoarse from reading too long out loud – it was music to the injured man’s ears even if he would never admit that in a million years. Danny was alive. They were _both_ alive. They had actually made it. It was incredible.

 

Danny had been discharged several days earlier. There were lingering concerns over the effect of the traumatic experience on his partner’s psyche **-** he was still anxious, still suffering occasional flashbacks… but a program of treatment and counseling was in place that Danny had sworn blind he would stick to. He was dealing with it, not denying it as he had always done in the past. And his hands were healing well- a course of intensive physio sessions were likely to be the only further treatment he needed. Considering what his partner had gone through the positive outlook was yet another miracle Steve could feel nothing but grateful for. It felt a little like someone was watching over them. And maybe, _maybe_ someone was.That right there was a thought Steve would previously have shunned, butnow…

 

Steve cracked open his eyes and watched his partner surreptitiously for a few moments through a mesh of long lashes. Danny had effectively taken up residence the instant Steve was moved from the ICU to a private room, evidently determined to stay by his side now it was permitted, until whatever ridiculous guilt-trip he had inflicted on himself began to fade.

 

Steve was okay with that because he had thought he’d lost his partner too.  He gazed affectionately at the blond man, a soft smile tugging at his lips. Danny's clear blue eyes were intent on the magazine in front of him and his one free hand, complete with dressings, was waving about, punctuating his speech in a way that was pure unadulterated Danny. Steve let his heavy eyes fall shut once more, utterly content.

Two weeks earlier, Danny’s constant presence would probably have driven him completely insane, would certainly have set both of them on edge.  But something in their relationship had shifted, changed.  Dramatically, like the earth after an intense, powerful storm that blows through, tearing and uprooting, and leaves behind a freshly washed landscape, harmonious, rejuvenated and full of life. They were still bickering, still poking fun at each other, but the warmth and brotherhood that had once come so easily was back, stronger than ever and, _God_ , Steve hadn’t even realized how much he had missed it. How much he had missed _them_.

 

Whether the catalyst was their shared nightmare ordeal, or the raw, honest talk they had had when Steve had been so, so sure he had been dying, he just didn’t know. Whatever the case, they seemed to be connected on a deeper level now. Maybe it was the slightly unsettling and awe-inspiring knowledge they had both been touched by something inexplicable, something he would never have believed in for a moment prior to all this, prior to Hesse and his bunker and his spike. Maybe it was Keiran.

 

The presence of the boy lingered- intermittent, faint and intangible. Sometimes it hardly seemed real anymore, but the fact they had both seen that same sad, lonely face was enough to reassure them that at least if they were going insane they were doing it together.Which in itself was unlikely, because insanity was not like the flu that could strike two people simultaneously.  People didn't go crazy in pairs, that just didn't happen.  Still, whether the pair of them were insane or not, the fact remained that the _body_ had been found. The boy had died, had been buried in that bunker. There was a real crime to solve, a wrong to right, and in the absence of leads on Hesse, the whole team was now on it. Steve smiled softly, because he loved his team… and because the fact they kept teasing the partners about was true- he and Danny really _couldn’t_ go anywhere without catching a case.

Steve’s meandering thoughts were rudely interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by a grunt of alarm from Danny and the abrupt scrape of his chair legs on the linoleum floor as he leapt to his feet.

Steve opened his eyes again in surprise, squinting against the bright light and the heavy pull of the drugs he was on. He turned his head but his blurred view of the room was blocked by his partner who had stepped directly between him and whatever was coming in the door. Danny was bolt upright, legs braced apart, his hand swinging back to his empty hip.

 

Alarmed, Steve tried to sit up but failed miserably as a sharp stab of pain broke through the thick veil of drugs at the ill-considered movement, and he sagged back down with a groan, eyes slamming shut against the breath-robbing agony.  A familiar hand latched onto his shoulder, squeezing gently – an instant, soothing comfort.  _Danny_.  Always perfectly attuned to him, always on guard.  He relaxed minutely into the welcome touch, breathing carefully through the pain.   By the time it subsided and he dared to open his eyes once more, Danny's focus was once again locked firmly on the door, and Steve tried in vain to see past Danny’s broad back in an effort to identify the threat that had caused his partner’s defensive reaction.

Then _Lou Grover_ appeared in his line of vision, nodding down at him even as he pushed Danny gently but firmly back down into his seat, and Steve exhaled in relief, letting himself relax even further.

“Sorry guys,” Lou said gruffly, “should have given you a heads up in the circumstances.”

Steve’s eyes widened as he saw what had set Danny off.

 

The Samoan that stood awkwardly just inside the door was _huge_ and the tattoo on his face screamed stereotypes at him… but the stranger was flanked by Chin and Kono and they all had the same look on their faces. There was no heat, no tension. Just a kind of resigned sadness.

 

“Who’s this?” Danny demanded hoarsely, still breathing hard for all of Lou’s reassurances.

 

Lou cleared his throat, then held out a hand towards the mountain of a man. “Steve, Danny, meet Malaki Euta. He’s okay.” He paused, fixed each partner in turn with a knowing look because yes, the guy looked like a gangbanger, there was no escaping it. “He thinks he has answers about what happened to Keiran. We thought you might want to hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, see what you think. We’ve checked out his story best we can and the background facts fit.”

 

Danny glanced uncertainly back at Steve and Steve nodded almost imperceptibly at him, because he trusted their team implicitly, and if they said this man was okay, then he was okay and that was that.  The blond stood again, resolute, and stepped forwards, reaching over to shake Euta’s hand. He was back in his seat seconds later, surreptitiously shifting his chair so he was still positioned between the stranger and his bed-ridden partner.

 

Steve smiled slightly at the screamingly obvious over-protectiveness his partner was displaying, but he didn’t call him on it.  After everything that happened, everything they had been through, he could hardly expect anything less.  From either of them.

 

Euta evidently read the situation well too, electing to nod respectfully at Steve from a safe distance rather than try to approach him for a handshake.

 

Steve watched in silence as Chin and Kono mustered more chairs and settled everyone around Steve’s bed, felt Danny's hand slide over to his and take hold.

 

“Okay Malaki,” Lou said, “tell ‘em your story.”

 

Euta smiled nervously, shifting in his seat. He coughed, cleared his throat then began to speak, fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “My father passed last year. When he was dying he told me a story, wanted to get it off his chest. He’d had this friend when he was a kid. He couldn’t remember the boy’s name but he remembered that he had red hair and he was kind of quiet. Loved exploring. The two of them used to meet up on the quiet. The boy’s parents didn’t want them hanging out- my grandfather was… he was not a good man, if you know what I mean.  Had a reputation. The family was not well- liked. They went exploring in the forest one day, found these old buildings. There was some accident, my father said.  He wasn't sure how it happened exactly, but the boy fell down some stairs, broke his neck. My father panicked, ran to fetch my grandfather… but my grandfather assumed he would get the blame. He wanted nothing to do with the authorities. He hid the body, buried it inside the building. Told my father he’d kill him if he ever told.”

 

Steve flicked a gaze over at Danny, who was now gripping his hand with almost bone-crushing pressure.The emotional investment the two of them had in uncovering Keiran’s story, in finding out what had happened to him, was significant. Steve squeezed back gently.

 

“Why didn’t you come forward before?” Danny croaked, ever the cynic.

 

The Samoan raised his eyebrows, shook his head and held out his hands, plainly on the defensive. “I didn’t know if it was true! And I didn’t even have a name or nothing. My father couldn’t recall the location. He had dementia, I wasn’t even sure if any of it was true at all. But when I saw the press release about the skeleton being found and I saw the old photo of the boy… I ... well, I thought for sure it was my father’s friend. I had to come forward.” 

 

Steve stared at the man, trying to assess what he’d said. He glanced Danny's way once more, then over to his other teammates.  Chin met his gaze and Steve raised an eyebrow at him in silent question.

 

Chin nodded. “It fits with Max’s findings, guys.”

 

“And it’s a good thing in a way," Kono spoke up, her voice steady, serious, "... if it’s true that this was an accident, I mean. He didn’t suffer- it was instantaneous. No one hurt him. He wasn’t scared.”

 

“They left him alone in the dark!" Steve couldn't help the weak, angry growl that slipped past his lips as he flicked an accusing glare towards the Samoan. "They didn’t take him back to his parents.” He knew it was ridiculously unfair – the man had absolutely nothing to do with Keiran's death, had no blame in it other than the unfortunate luck of having been indirectly tied to the boy's death through bloodlines he could in no way control. Still, Steve couldn't help his reaction - the vision of the fear on that boy’s face was engrained in his mind so deeply.

 

“Steve…” Chin started, reproachful, but Euta cut back in.

 

“I’m sorry.” A tear ran down the huge man’s tattooed cheek.

 

Steve had to avert his eyes. He closed them for a moment, shook his head. “Fuck, no," he breathed out, grateful beyond measure for the subtle tightening of Danny's fingers around his hand in silent, steadfast support, "I'm sorry, I... that wasn’t fair. I just… feel for the boy I guess, I’m not blaming you. We appreciate you coming forwards. We really do.”

 

Euta nodded in understanding, his large face creased with sorrow.“Well, I feel bad for him too. I got kids of my own. The thought of it happening to them..it’s not good, brah. The kid’s parents should have gotten to bury him.”

 

The room descended into a melancholy silence for a moment.

 

“Well…” Started Lou, “Keiran’s parents might be dead but Jerry has found surviving relatives- his niece and her family- at least they have answers. Right?”

 

"Yeah," Steve huffed out in reluctant, mournful agreement, stealing a glance at his partner.  Danny was staring dully at the ground, face shuttered. 

“Yeah. Thank you. Really,” the blond muttered, his voice subdued.  Euta's confession had taken a lot out of both of them and Steve, for one, was more than ready to have this be over.

 

“Well, guys, thanks for this. We appreciate it.” He let out a long breath, wincing. “I don’t want to be rude, but I’m beat." A yawn crept up on him, long and drawn out, giving further credence to his words.  "Mind if I get some sleep?”

 

“Sure.” Lou got to his feet, patting Euta on the shoulder as he did. “Danny, you wanna come with us? Go get something to eat and leave this guy in peace for a bit?”

 

Danny's head snapped back up, his gaze zeroing in on Lou.“No. I’m gonna stay with him.” The response was an instant snap, no hesitation, and Steve felt Danny tighten his grip on his hand once more as if their friends might actually contemplate forcing him to leave.

 

“Okay,” said Lou with an understanding smile, leaning over to clap him on the shoulder as well.

 

Kono bent to kiss Danny’s cheek, then moved over to do the same to Steve.

 

Chin lingered as the others filed out in silence. He knelt beside the partners, dark eyes studying them intently.  “Does this help?” he inquired softly.

 

Steve and Danny exchanged a glance.

 

Danny shrugged, dropping his gaze back to the floor.“I guess it helps _us_ …” he muttered uncertainly. “I mean at least, like Kono said, we know he didn’t suffer. And at least we know there’s no decrepit criminal on the loose.”

 

Steve shook his head, unconvinced. “Yeah, but what about _him_? What about Keiran?" he objected, voice soft.  "He wanted to go home. He wanted his mom and dad.”

 

Chin looked between the two of them, placed his hand on top of their tightly clasped ones. “Well with everything we’ve found out, maybe we can find a way to do that for him now, right?”

 

They smiled at him gratefully, watching him as he left.

 

Steve let out a slow breath then glanced at Danny again. His friend looked miserable. It _was_ a sad, sad story and Steve couldn’t help but feel a little shaky himself, knowing now what had befallen the boy who had effectively saved him. But at least they had answers now and that was good. And they had found family for Keiran and that was good too. Maybe, maybe they could find him some sort of resolution, some kind of peace. Maybe they could fix things for him.

He studied Danny's face for a moment, noting the deep lines that creased his forehead and spiderwebbed around his eyes, the haunted, lost look in the pale blues, and suddenly he recognized some of his friend's pain for what it was. Danny was imagining himself in the position of Keiran’s parents. Never knowing, always speculating and wishing and hoping and grieving.

And how _awful_ must the knowledge that Keiran's parents had _died_ without ever knowing what had happened to their son be for Danny.  How terrifying.

Instantly wanting to dig Danny out of that particular pit, Steve went straight for the big guns.  “Hey, Grace and Charlie are gonna come visit me today? I’ve not seen ‘em for…,” he glanced at the clock by his bed, “eighteen hours? And that means you haven’t either. That’s too long, partner.”

 

It worked. Danny's face lit up with a pure, radiant smile, the lines of emotional anguish easing in response. “Yeah. Couple of hours. Rachel’s gonna drop ‘em off for a while.”

 

“You gonna go do something with ‘em?”

 

Danny’s face fell. “I don’t know," he hedged, distressed once more. "I just.” He released Steve’s hand and waved his own around the room, crudely conveying the limits of where he wanted to be right then.

 

Steve nodded, biting his lip. “Not ready. It’s okay. I get it." He wasn't gonna push hard.  If Danny was gonna leave his side, it would have to be on his terms, he knew that.  Still... there was nothing wrong with a gentle nudge. "Why don’t you go get them something from the store downstairs to keep them occupied?”

 

Danny plainly knew what Steve was doing and he raised an eyebrow, tried to challenge him with a glare. Then he weakened, looked down at the ground, evidently nothing short of ashamed of his need to stay where he was.

 

Steve smiled gently, squeezing his friend's hand again before unclasping their grip and physically nudging his friend to move. “C’mon Danno. Baby steps. Just down to the store. I’ll be right here, okay? Not going anywhere.”

 

Danny looked at him doubtfully.

 

“Look," Steve sighed, stifling another yawn, "to be honest, I’m bored. I need some new magazines. You’d be doing me a favor.” Steve laid on the emotional blackmail thick for his partner’s sake.

 

Danny glared at him again, but then smirked knowingly. “Still trying to fix all the broken toys, huh, buddy? Even when you’re _here_. Like _this_? They won’t even let you eat solid food yet and you’re already playing paperback psychology just because I’m a little fucked in the head? You gotta sort me out, you gotta fix things for Keiran, huh?” He reached over, poked Steve solidly in the chest then fixed him with a serious gaze. “Steve, you know I love you, babe, but you’re lacking a little thing called _per-spect-ive_. You, my friend, just came out of a coma. You nearly died, _repeatedly_ might I add, because you tried to rescue my sorry ass in classic gung-ho McGarrett fashion. And I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, but as the person who got the enviable job of watching it all happen I think that perhaps I’m entitled to worry about you! Someone’s got to and you’ve demonstrated over and over again that it ain’t gonna be you so that makes it my job. Right?”

There was some heat behind Danny’s words and a whole heap of barely-concealed emotion, but there was so much warmth and genuine concern in his expression that Steve couldn’t help but smile broadly at him, again wondering how the hell the two of them had ended up at odds for so long.

Still, as much as he enjoyed basking in the fiercely protective warmth of his partner's care and affection, Steve was convinced that Danny needed this break to get at least some of the normalcy back in his life, and so he shrugged stubbornly, holding Danny’s gaze.  “Okay, okay fair point. You can worry…."  And then he went in for the kill.  "But you can’t feel guilty.”

Danny’s eyes widened in shock. “Who says I feel guilty?”

Steve countered his partner's defensive indignation with a soft, knowing smile.  “Hey, you know me, but I know you too, remember. Danny, you didn’t let me down. You’ve got nothing to make up for, nothing to prove.”

Danny's anguished gaze held his for several long, agonizing moments, then Danny snorted self-derisively and dropped his eyes to the floor.  “I guess that depends on your point of view,” he murmured.

Steve let out a slow breath then reached for his partner’s hand again, tugging on it until the blond man met his searching gaze. “Well, whatever. So you’re worrying about me. Fair enough, go buy something to entertain me then ‘cause, like I said, I’m bored.”

It took about three seconds more for Danny to cave. “Okay. Okay,” he said with a resigned sigh, then smiled crookedly. “Do they even stock Guns and Ammo in a hospital?”

 

Steve grinned at him, triumphant. “Don’t know till you look, buddy!”

 

Danny went to get to his feet, resigned, but Steve's searching fingers grasped at his hand again and he  smiled softly in encouragement before letting his hand flop limply back onto the covers.  He really did feel exhausted. His healing body still too tired, the pull of medication in his bloodstream still too strong for him to keep his eyes open for any significant length of time. “Thank you.” He murmured. “M’gonna sleep. Take your time.”  He let his eyes flutter shut.

He felt Danny's hand on his cheek, and he nodded against it. There was a fond chuckle, a scrape of a chair, the soft click of the door being shut, and Steve settled deeper into his pillow, floating in a light, comfortable doze, while he waited for his friend to return.

 

He drifted, exhausted and sore as hell but content.

 

Moments later, or it could have been minutes, even hours, there was another click and the door squeaked open again.

 

Had Danny returned already, he wondered lazily, his mind still too slow, too heavy with sleep. Maybe it was the doctor. Or that nice nurse with the long curly brown hair. Sally… Sadie…. something beginning with an ‘S’ anyway. Steve listened idly to the footsteps as they approached, trying to guess.  They seemed kinda heavy, brisk. Male, perhaps.  Different from the way Danny's sounded though, that much he could tell.  He frowned.

 

"Hello, Commander. Did ya miss me?"

 

Steve’s eyes flew open in shock only to see intense green eyes staring hatefully at him from mere inches away, thin mouth twisting into a mocking smile.

 

_Hesse._

And then there simply wasn't time to react as a dark shape swooped down on him, a thick, rough hand clamping viselike over his mouth and nose.

 

_No!_ Hesse couldn’t be there. He wasn’t even on the island! There were police officers guarding the hall outside! It wasn’t possible- he had to be _dreaming_!

 

But the pressure on his face increased and it was _real_ , Hesse was right there!

 

"You're a tenacious one, ain't ya?"  A burst of laughter as the jeering face slid closer still.  "Like a bloody cat.  Ya think ya ran out of your nine lives yet?  You didn't think I’d leave ya without finishing the job, did ya?"

 

Adrenaline surging, Steve fought to raise his uncooperative arms to shove the intruder away, cursing the meds that made his body feel like it was swathed in lead.  But the attempt to free himself, feeble though it was, only served to infuriate his attacker further, and Hesse leaned forward with his elbow, throwing his weight behind the suffocating arm that now lay fully across Steve's face.  Steve bucked against him, gasping desperately for breath, his fingers digging into Hesse's shoulders as he strained to push him away. 

 

Hesse chuffed mockingly at his struggle, his lips parting in a wide predatory smirk that flashed a row of yellowish teeth.  "Always fighting to yer last breath, eh Commander?  My dad mentioned that about you.  Said it made things more... interesting."  The green eyes lit up with perverted excitement, the gaze sliding down toward Steve's abdomen.   "Let me see if I remember this correctly," he murmured distractedly and then the man's other arm swooped down in a sharp, unforgiving arc, strong bony fist slamming brutally into the healing wound. 

 

A firestorm of pain tore through Steve's body, the intensity of it taking his breath away, shrouding his consciousness in a momentary haze of red.  He tensed, eyes blown wide, the veins in his neck bulging with impossible pressure as he struggled to ride out the pain.   But it proved a futile task as the fist dug harder and deeper and deeper until stitches began to give way under the savage pressure and an explosion of searing agony synced with a feel of fresh wetness seeping into his gown.  Steve moaned, low and breathless, against the fabric of Hesse's sleeve.

 

"That's right, pig," Hesse's raspy, taunting voice floated toward him, muted by the ever-increasing roar of blood in his ears.  "Squeal for me.  _Louder!_ "

 

The pressure on his abdomen let up abruptly, Hesse pulling his arm away to reach for something behind his back.  And then the respite was over.  The man's arm swooped back up, and Steve had just had a moment to glimpse the silver glint of a knife gripped tightly within the pale fingers before the blade descended toward him at a swift, deliberate angle and he jerked abruptly as the cold sharp metal sliced through the remaining stitches.  Blood gushed forth from the newly reopened wound, soaking the surrounding fabric.  Weakly, Steve scrabbled to press his trembling hands against his abdomen, eyes slammed shut to stave off a sudden wave of dizziness that threatened to take him under.

 

"Squeal, pig!"  The hate-filled words were hissed fiercely above his ear and he snapped his eyes open in shocked surprise as he felt the sudden, agonizing pressure of a finger thrust brutally inside his wound, digging, probing.  " _Squeal_...” 

 

Steve moaned despite himself, his arms falling limply at his sides.  Wave after wave of searing agony drained what little strength he had and the lack of oxygen was making it harder and harder to keep the encroaching blackness away.  There was a strange heaviness in his body, a numbness that he could no longer hold back.  Aiden's gloating face wavered unsteadily above him. He looked dimly up at it, watched distantly as the man raised a bloodied finger to his mouth and _licked_ it. Then the definition of the grisly scene began to fade away into the gradually thickening haze.

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

Danny stood staring at the display of kids’ magazines in the hospital store. He ran his finger absently across a few, feeling the texture of the glossy paper, seeing the bright colors of the cheerful characters on the covers. He tried to read the words on the publications in front of him in search of Charlie’s favorite TV Shows. He just couldn’t seem to focus.

 

He felt wrong. Unsettled. He just couldn’t shake a feeling of unease that coiled snakelike in the pit of his stomach. He took a few deep breaths, but his legs felt like jelly. PTSD. This was the PTSD doing its thing. He knew that. They’d told him that. The out-of-proportion guilt-trip that Steve had just perceptively called him on, the anxiety- it was all part and parcel of it.

He closed his eyes, sorted through the toolbox of coping strategies for anxiety that the therapist had discussed with him. Deep, slow breaths- check. Consciously relax muscles- okay… check. Grounding technique- touch something real. Think about the object.

He picked up a magazine and flicked through it but failed miserably to take any of it in, concentration resolutely elsewhere. Three floors up to be precise.

The anxious feeling intensified suddenly, like a wave of icy-cold water that splashed on top of him, drenching and freezing him to the core.  He stiffened, feeling an involuntary shudder run through him.  And then he felt eyes staring at the back of his head, the familiar gaze as intense and inescapable as it had ever been in the bunker.

Danny turned around slowly, and his jaw dropped as his gaze fixed on the slight figure standing outside the glass window of the store. Reflections of the artificial lighting, of the shelves of produce, of Danny himself made the figure seem ephemeral… but he was right there. It was _Keiran._ He could _see_ him…and the look on his face was one of pure, abject terror.

 

Danny stared at the specter, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.  He watched as the youthful face turned from his and looked towards the door to the stairwell, looked upwards, then back to Danny, desperate and pleading.

_Steve!_

Danny dropped the magazine he was holding and ran.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Just when you thought things were finally on the mend, eh. Well, we never said we were done playing with the boys, did we... ::twin evil smirks::


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

 

Adrenaline soaring, Danny raced up the stairs two at a time, heart pounding in terror against his aching ribs. His hand gripped the rail tight as he went, muscles trembling with the effort of keeping himself on his feet, light dressings doing little to ease the sting of the pressure on his healing skin.

 

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_ … he swore repetitively in his mind as he pushed himself. He shouldn’t have left Steve, he should _never_ have left Steve and now what the hell had happened to him?  Was it Hesse? Had Hesse come back? Or freaking Gabriel or… or… _Jesus_ but they’d pissed off a lot of evil people in their time.

 

He gasped for breath, studiously blanking the growing shakiness in his legs because he _was_ much better, but he wasn’t up to this. Not even close.Damn the _fucking_ elevator, the tiny death-trap box had been jammed full with people heading in the wrong fucking direction and he couldn't afford to waste a single moment waiting. _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…_ But he had to keep going, he could do it, he had to protect Steve, there was no one else to….

 

He slowed to a sudden stumbling halt as realization struck and stood, his sides heaving, head spinning. Steve _wasn’t_ alone. HPD were there. Their team had kept the protection details in place because Hesse’s true location was unknown.  Officer Lokelani was there to be precise, stationed in the hall right outside Steve’s room.  Danny had nodded a greeting to him as he’d headed reluctantly away from his partner and towards the stairs.  Lokelani was experienced, tough and smart. Bit arrogant maybe, but quite good fun. Certainly competent.  _Steve was safe_.

 

Danny leaned heavily against the wall as exhaustion and dizziness rode in on the tailcoats of adrenaline dump.  It was crazy. He’d left Steve for what, ten minutes? And now he was trying to sprint up several flights of stairs because he _thought_ he saw a concerned ghost? What the fuck was wrong with him?

 

Hesse, it was Hesse that was bothering him, it _had_ to be- the man’s clean getaway was eating away quietly at him. He was furious at what the bastard had done to Steve. _Furious_. Not knowing where he was- that was adding to Danny’s jumpiness, for sure. But an attack here at the hospital?  It made no sense.  Even if Hesse had renewed plans to deal with Steve, he was hardly going to do it in such an obviously public place with hundreds of potential witnesses, with CCTV cameras, security guards and cops about. You’d have to be clinically _insane_ to try something like that.

 

Danny staggered across to the center of the stairwell and leaned over a little, looked upwards. There were people on the stairs, moving steadily up, moving steadily down, unhurried.  Low voices were talking, chatting, laughing quietly. Everything seemed normal. Nothing seemed wrong.  In fact curious looks were coming _his_ way… _he_ was the only thing out of the ordinary.

 

He climbed on, slowly now and increasingly self-conscious at his flustered appearance, still needing to check-up on Steve no matter what logic was telling him.  He cringed. He was returning to his partner empty-handed - nothing for his kids, no random stupid magazine to annoy Steve with…it was going to be so obvious he’d had a meltdown of some sort. Steve would make fun of him. No, worse than that, Steve would get all doe-eyed with concern despite the fact he himself was just days past having been at death’s door and was largely being held together by… whatever the hell they’d stitched him back together with.

 

He reached the door to Steve’s floor and hesitated, glancing back down the stairs to where he _should_ be going.

But he was filled with doubt. Logic might be telling him everything was _fine_ …. but Keiran Quinn had looked _real_. And Danny might have seen him before, but not like this. This time Danny wasn’t hallucinating or dreaming, he wasn’t sick, wasn’t dying, hadn’t been _desperate_. A little unhinged maybe, but… enough to imagine _that_?

 

He shook his head, remembering the sudden, overwhelming feeling of dread that had come over him seconds before Keiran had appeared to him back there in the store.  This was nothing like the worry that had been his constant companion lately.  Not even close.  This was terror, ice-cold, heart-stopping terror.  And Danny knew deep inside that he needed to see Steve, to physically reassure himself of his partner's safety.  For his own sanity if nothing else.   Decided now, he pulled the door open and turned to look along the hall.

 

Officer Lokelani wasn’t there.

 

Heart now in his mouth, Danny walked closer to where the HPD man should have been and if the son of a bitch had so much as stepped away for a _piss_ without calling for a relief officer, Danny was going to fucking _kill_ him. Would Lokelani have done that? Surely not…

 

Danny’s gaze flicked through every door and window he passed, every sense primed for danger. He passed a supply closet and did a double take. The door was ajar by the tiniest amount and he could just make out something black and shiny at the base of the shadowy crack. He grasped the handle and opened the door a fraction more, head cocked.

 

It was a boot. A black boot. A freaking police issue Magnum boot…

 

Danny yanked the door the rest of the way open and froze, his eyes widening with horror. It wasn't just any boot.  It was _Lokelani’s_ boot. The man himself was folded awkwardly on the floor of the closet, eyes forever dulled. His throat had been slit.

 

“No. No, no, _no_!” Danny murmured, nausea rising at what he saw before him… at the thought of what might be happening further down the hall. Because this was no hallucination, no figment of his desperate imagination. This was _real_! And in that moment Danny realized he had forgotten one thing when he had decided they were safe here. He might have realized that it would take a madman to try to attack Steve in a hospital… but he had forgotten that Aiden Hesse had already demonstrated himself to be f _ucking insane_.

 

He had to get to Steve! _Now_! His eyes flicked to the dead cop’s hip. His holster was empty.  _Damn._

 

Dread curling in the pit of his stomach, he turned and _sprinted_ towards Steve’s room.

 

Steve’s door was shut and Danny halted in front of it, staring at the barrier in momentary indecision. He was _unarmed_ , he should try to engage his brain to at least some extent, find some sort of weapon before bursting in. But a muffled cry from inside had Danny reaching for the handle without further thought.

 

His movement was stopped short. A big hand clamped down on his shoulder, jerking him back. Danny looked round to see a tall figure in a doctor’s tunic behind him. He turned sharply, ready to explain, ready to ask the man to call for help…. And then he looked up at the face and his eyes widened in horrified recognition, because he had seen that man before, in his own house, before that fucking hood went over his head!  And then later in the _bunker_ amid the nauseating whirlwind of faces that floated around and above him as he was getting the shit kicked out of him! It wasn’t a fucking doctor at all! It was one of Hesse’s men!

 

The man before him smiled in smug acknowledgment of his remembrance and nodded a twisted greeting.

 

Something hard and sharp nudged his gut. He looked down. _It was a knife._ Deadly but silent. Eyes wide, mind working frantically, Danny joined the dots. They were trying to be discrete - using disguises and knives, waiting until Steve was alone to strike. A surgical mission. Discrete.

Danny raised both arms above his head, the movement deliberately abrupt.

 

The man narrowed his eyes in silent warning. “Hands _down_. Act cool,” he hissed, then glanced to the side, as though to check that the move hadn’t drawn attention.

 

Danny struck like a viper.

He grabbed the thug’s knife hand, pushing it down and away from him with every ounce of his strength even as he raised his knee sharply right between the bastard’s legs. The man doubled over with a strangled gasp, the knife clattering to the ground.  Danny let loose with an uppercut, smashing his target square on the jaw. The scrub-clad impostor went down, out cold.

 

The pain in Danny’s right hand brought tears to his eyes and he curled in on himself, holding it out in front of him. The dressings had provided some merciful protection but _Jesus_ the slowly healing skin was _not_ ready for that. Gritting his teeth, he breathed through stinging agony, pushing it away because there was simply no time for it.

 

Shaking his head determinedly, he knelt and frisked the downed man with his left hand. _No gun_. _Dammit!_ Grinding his teeth in frustration, he grabbed the knife from the floor and tucked it into the back of his waistband then looked up, panting hard.

 

The brief struggle had gathered attention and this time Danny _could_ ask for back-up…. A doctor was running towards him, a real doctor, a doctor he _knew_!

Danny grabbed the woman – Dr Keli’i **–** by the arm as she slid to a halt beside him. He put a warning finger to his lips, calling her to silence, then pointed at the unconscious man in the ground. “Please, please can you tie him up or fucking sedate him or something. _Please_ ,” he hissed, leaning closer to ensure his urgent whisper carried to her ears only, “and get security, call HPD, call our team. Tell ‘em I need back-up. Tell ‘em Aiden Hesse is _here._ NOW!” He pointed at Steve’s door as he spoke, utter desperation on his face.

 

She nodded wide-eyed but determined, waving frantically in the direction of a colleague at the other end of the hall.  And Danny's attention was already turned away from her and the hushed activity now centered on the unconscious man on the ground in front of him.  He took a sliding step backwards, pressing his ear to the door, but he couldn’t hear a thing.  Huffing out a slow, steadying breath, Danny turned the door handle, trying to make the movement as noiseless as possible, praying he might catch Hesse unawares, praying he hadn’t already been alerted by the noise outside. Praying Steve was _alive_.

 

He peered through the narrow gap.

 

Time came to a crackling, heart-seizing stop as Danny took in the scene before him. Steve was on his bed, just where he should be, but he wasn't alone. _Hesse_! The man himself was right there, leaning over his partner, his hands pressing on Steve's body, Steve's abdomen, Steve's mouth, Steve's nose. Hesse was hurting him, _smothering_ him!  Steve’s hands clawed weakly at Hesse’s shoulders, then Danny heard a moan, low and weak just as Hesse's weight seemed to shift, pushing harder against Steve's midsection and Danny's horror-numbed brain registered the Irishman pull a blood-soaked finger with slow, perverse pleasure out of Steve's belly and press it almost lasciviously against his lips.  In the next instant Steve's struggle ceased, his hands flopping down, limp, and just like that time kicked back into gear, Danny's world blurring forward with dizzying, warp-like speed.

 

No. Just _no_!

 

All caution through aside, Danny burst into the room, _growling_ in murderous fury, and launched himself straight at Hesse in a desperate attempt to save his partner.

 

Hesse turned in surprise, eyes wide, and Danny had time to see the look of utter hatred twist the man’s young face before he struck, barreling into him with his full body weight. The pair of them hit the ground hard, both sliding across the floor. Danny grunted in pain, but Hesse was away from Steve and that was all that mattered right then.

 

Hesse had a gun. Lokelani's?  Danny had seen it tucked in the man's waistband. Hesse also had the advantage of being taller and stronger right then, unhindered by injuries. Danny couldn't afford to allow him to draw, couldn't afford to let him stand up, or give the man even a second to recover.It'd be all over for him if he did.  All over for Steve, too.   So he pressed on, charging ahead like an out of control freight train.Blanking the raw agony in his hands, he pummeled Hesse with a flurry of punches and elbow strikes as the bastard tried to get back to his feet. His strikes were good and true, honed to steel-like perfection in the meanest of Jersey street fights.He drew blood, splitting open the man's lip, busting his nose, cracking the skin over his eyebrow. 

But Hesse was as tough as his old man had been.  He bucked under Danny, baring blood-tinged teeth, and struck out, smacking Danny square on the nose. There was an audible crack, a stinging pain that made Danny's eyes water, a rush of blood...  Danny bit his lip, blinking the pain away.  He wasn’t going to back off, he wasn’t going to let Steve down.  Not this time. Teeth gritted, Danny swung with all his might, landing a crushing blow to the Irishman’s temple.  Hesse's head snapped back, impacting with the floor, and the man sagged underneath him, stunned.  Breathing hard, Danny grabbed him by the shoulders and began to manhandle him onto his stomach, pulling off his own belt with the intention of restraining him, unwilling to give the man even a moment of respite lest he should strike again like the snake that he was.

Danny risked a glance over towards Steve. His partner was limp on his bed, jaw hanging lax, chest rising and falling by the tiniest amount. The dressing on his abdomen was gone and there was fresh blood running from his healing wound. Danny’s stomach lurched in fear.  What new damage had Hesse done?

 

The sound of a slamming door and a scraping chair had Danny turning, praying back-up had arrived. But before he could twist right round, a beefy arm hooked around his neck. It squeezed mercilessly, dragging him off Hesse, pulling him upright, back up onto his feet, then suspending him off the ground. He gasped and gurgled, his air supply cut right off! Another man, Hesse had another trained brute with him! Desperate, Danny tried reach round between them to grab for the knife in the waistband of his pants, but his fingers just wouldn’t do what he wanted them to. Lights started to flash before his eyes. He grabbed the thick arm with both hands, trying to ease the pressure, to lift himself up or pull himself free or _anything_.But it was all in vain.He simply couldn’t _move_.

Hesse was back on his feet now, right in Danny’s face, looking every inch the madman he was.

"Bloody stubborn pigs ye are," he hissed, breath hot with fury, and Danny blinked sluggishly, trying to  make out his words past the sound of blood rushing in his ears, eyes widening at the sight of the knife in Hesse's hand.  "I shoulda skewered the both of ya back there when I had the chance.  But no, yer bloody partner had to play hero again, push ya out of the way."  His mouth twisted in an ugly, hate-filled snarl and he stepped closer still, knife raised.  "Better late than never, though, right Detective?" 

Danny saw the light flash off the edge of the blade as it swung towards him and he choked and gagged, fighting weakly to twist away.  Frantic, he raised his hands instinctively in an effort to protect himself... then felt the white hot bite as the knife slashed through the flesh of his arms, his shoulders. He saw his own blood fly.

Everything began to turn hot and red, his mind blurring, stuttering to a hazy, lethargic halt.  Danny felt wrong and faint and far away and reality began to detach itself, fear and anger and fiery pain numbing to vague impressions of the same. He slumped, body heavy and limp, hands falling to his sides. The sunlight pouring in the window seemed to dim dramatically, the colors in the room around him disappearing, muting to a faded, indistinct gray. All except one.  Red.  The red of blood, his own.  It was everywhere.  Flowing freely down his arms, sheeting down his face so all he could see was taking on a sickly red hue. Yet there was no pain. There _should_ have been pain, but all he felt was an odd kind of heaviness that seemed to weigh him down, dulling all of his senses.  He knew it was bad, very very bad, but he couldn't find in himself the energy to care. Darkness closed in on him, inky fingers trying to claw him back into its depths.

Hesse’s rage-distorted face flickered in front of him like a picture on a dying TV screen... but then it was the boy in front of him, it was _Keiran_ , screaming and afraid, and then Danny was right back in the fucking bunker. Every moment that he and Steve had spent in that inescapable black hole flashed through his mind, he heard every scream of pain that had passed his partner’s lips once more, felt every moment of agony his best friend had suffered through.  He saw himself, his own shameful inability to help his partner, to stop his suffering, ease his pain... and… no. This was _not_ going to be yet another one of his failures.

Danny lost it.

He raised both hands again, grabbed the thick arm that was clamped tight round his neck and swung on it. With a furious, desperate growl he kicked out with both legs, knocking Hesse backwards, then stuck an elbow into the solid midriff behind him. The grip on his neck slackened and he tore loose, hauling in oxygen as he twisted sharply around to face the big man. A heavy punch greeted him instantly, breaking through his guard, impacting near his hairline hard enough to rattle his teeth.He shook it off.  He wasn’t going to go down, he couldn’t lose.  It simply wasn't an option.

Danny aimed a brutal fist into the man’s solar plexus, following with a swift knee to the face as his adversary crumpled downwards.

He fumbled for his knife again, finally wrapping his fingers around it. He drew it, then tried to spin round, to face Hesse… but the room chose that moment to waver around him and he staggered, frowning in confusion as he tried desperately to regain his focus, to find Hesse.

“No!” he murmured, bracing his legs apart because he _wasn’t_ going to go down before the job was done.There was no _way_!He shook his head, trying to clear it, to get his bearings.  But his vision darkened momentarily and he swayed in place, swearing under his breath because he felt weak as hell.Suddenly there was a whisper of a cold breath on the back of his neck, a familiar icy touch on his shoulder.  It sent a shiver of warning down his spine, broke through the pain-wrought haze that had shrouded his senses.  He stiffened, straining his hearing.  And then he heard it – a soft footfall behind him, and he knew _exactly_ where Hesse was even if he couldn’t see him. Danny could _feel_ him now, feel his evil presence.  He tightened his grip on the hilt of the knife.

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

Steve clawed his way back to consciousness, moaning softly against the throbbing, fiery pain that radiated forth from his gut.  He struggled for a moment to recall exactly what had happened, because he didn't remember being in so much pain before.His mind, dulled and fractured, threw out disjointed bits and pieces of memories at him... Danny smiling down at him affectionately, his hand curling protectively around Steve's own.  Danny's eyes, intense and worried, as they talked about the prospect of leaving Steve alone.  Another pair of eyes, green, predatory, hateful.  An impossible pressure, lack of air, pain…

_Hesse_!  

Panicked, he snapped his eyes open, struggling to raise his head, to bring the hopelessly wavering scene before him into some measure of focus.   And gasped in bewildered shock as the undulating blobs before him finally began to take shape.

_Danny._ Danny was there, shirt stained red, swaying feebly with the effort to stay on his feet… Someone, some guy - one of Hesse’s goons, he assumed - was lying face down on the ground, out for the count.  But then there was _Hesse..._ On his feet, gun in hand, walking slowly and deliberately straight towards his partner who stood facing _away_ from the threat, facing the door!

Danny didn't even seem to be aware of what was happening right behind him.  He was battered and bloody – he looked _done._ And Hesse plainly saw it too, the gloating, snarling expression on his own blood-streaked face reminded Steve of a hungry hyena that stalked its defenseless prey already savoring the victory. He hesitated for long enough to shoot Steve a mocking smile. “Time to put him out of his misery, don’t you think Commander?” he hissed. “Don’t worry, you're next…”

Steve opened his mouth to call out a warning, but his voice choked soundlessly on the strangled words.  Teeth gritted, he tried to push himself upright, struggling against the screaming pain that drove him down again and again, leaving him dizzy and breathless.Desperate, he looked over towards the door, to where he heard a distant row of voices, urgent, shouting. _Chin_!He thought for sure he recognized his teammate's voice.  Which meant backup was here, just outside the door.But there was a metal chair wedged under the door handle and the fucking thing refused to budge despite the furor of blows hammering against the wood.  Hesse wasn’t getting away this time, that was for sure, and the man himself had to know it too… And maybe it was that knowledge that powered the man's dangerously reckless attitude, but he was blatantly disinterested in anything but finishing the job he’d started in the rainforest. He was going to kill them. He was going to kill _Danny_ and there was nothing Steve could do to stop it from happening.  Crippled and weak as he was, he couldn't hope to intervene in time!

Steve watched, utterly helpless, as Hesse stepped right up behind Danny and raised the gun to his head.

But Danny _wasn't_ done, not yet.  The moment Hesse stopped behind him Danny moved like lightning.Swift and vicious, he thrust his hand backwards and Steve's wide-eyed stare just registered the glint of a _knife_ clutched tightly in his partner's grasp before that weapon hit home with a sickeningly wet thud.

Steve watched in breathless disbelief as Danny pivoted to face his attacker.Hesse staggered back from him, staring down at his own stomach in shock and denial. The blade had sunk in deep, the angle of the hit driving it under his ribcage and upwards, only the hilt protruding.  A sure, fatal blow, aimed at the heart... but Danny clearly wasn't taking any chances.  He followed Hesse’s backward movement, one hand gripping the handle of the knife and the other grabbing Hesse’s gun hand.  Growling with unrestrained fury, he _shoved_ , pushing Hesse bodily over to the wall.  He pinned him against it with his full body weight and started to slam the man's hand against the solid surface over and over and over again until the weapon dropped from the nerveless fingers, clattering to the floor.

Hesse's shocked, incredulous glare slid sluggishly in Steve’s direction, mouth opening in a breathless gasp that morphed into a red-frothed gurgle.  Then Danny stepped back, releasing him abruptly, and Hesse went down.  Blood gushed onto the floor as the knife was jerked out, still gripped firmly in Danny’s hand.

Steve stared down at the twitching body on the floor, open-mouthed, mind struggling to catch up with what he had just witnessed his still-healing partner achieve.  “W-way to go, Danny!” he managed to choke out, then gasped out a breath that was approaching a laugh and let himself flop back down on the bed, utter relief flooding through his body. He squeezed his eyes shut. The pain from his gut was intense. He could feel blood running from the wound and he gritted his teeth, wondering what damage had been done. But it was gonna be okay, help was right outside. Was _still_ right outside, he realized. _Still_ struggling to break through the door. Why hadn’t Danny let them in?

Grunting with the effort, Steve raised his head once more. Danny was still standing, looking down at Hesse. He was swaying in place, his breaths coming in short, rasping pants.

 “Da-... Danny!” Steve called out hoarsely, trying to draw his partner's attention. But Danny didn’t acknowledge him, didn't move.  He just stood there, legs trembling **,** eyes now focused on nothing. 

Steve frowned in confusion.  His eyes drifted to the red stains on Danny's shirt, then widened, his heart seizing in horror as he finally took in what he was seeing.  Danny's shirt was _soaked_ and blood was running down his arms, gushing onto the floor in a sick, steady rhythm.  Arterial... an arterial bleed!  None of that blood was Hesse's.  His partner was injured and _badly_.  He was bleeding out right here, right before his very eyes!  

_Shit!_

Steve had to _do_ something! He _had_ to, or he would lose his partner, for good this time.  He had to try to let their back up in, try to stop the bleeding… he had to _help Danny_.

 

Trembling, he pulled the cannula out of the back of his hand and rolled painfully onto his side, pushed himself once more up off his mattress.Driven by nothing more than sheer desperation, he succeeded in swinging his legs around to sit on the side of the bed. Feet now on the ground, he forced himself upright, gripping the bed with one hand as his legs wobbled dangerously underneath him. The agony in his abdomen reached entirely new proportions and he leaned heavily against the bed, closing his eyes for a moment as he fought to steady himself against a wave of inky dizziness that threatened to drive him straight down onto the floor.  But Danny needed him.  Now!  And so he forced his shaking limbs to move, pushing himself off the bed to grasp at the table, then the wall, placing one uncooperative foot in front of the other as he struggled closer inch by painful inch. The room spun around him and his bare feet slipped traitorously, toiling for purchase on the blood-soaked floor.

The door was far, impossibly so, but Danny... Danny was almost within reach now, and Steve pushed himself forward, grabbing at his partner’s arm, desperately trying to work out where the worst of the blood was coming from.

Danny turned sharply towards him, almost knocking Steve to the ground. The knife was raised, the blue eyes wild and unfocused.

For a split second Steve thought Danny was going to stab _him_ in his confusion and he couldn’t have blamed him, not for a second… Involuntarily, he held his breath in anticipation of the blow, but it never came.  The knife-wielding hand froze mid-movement and the blond man blinked and gasped in horrified realization.  An instant later the hand dropped, the knife clattering harmlessly to the floor, and Danny stumbled backwards, swaying dramatically.

Steve grabbed onto him, clutching his upper arms with both of his hands.  “Danny... buddy, you’re bleeding, you... you need to lie down, let me see, okay?  I'm gonna... I n-need to stop the bleeding.”

Danny met his eye for an instant, the clear blue clouded with bewilderment and fear, but then all comprehension was gone and with an indistinct moan he dropped down to his knees.

Unable to support either of them, Steve bumped down too, barely registering the blood trickling down his own legs from his abdomen. The abrupt movement jolted him, the pain from his gut rising like wildfire, taking his breath away, and he rocked forwards on his knees. His mind went blank and, for an instant, it was as though they were back in the bunker and Hesse’s trap had never sprung and he’d made it safely across the underground room to his stricken partner, to rescue him like he should have done to begin with, to hold him and tell him he was safe… but it was all wrong, there was so much blood, it was flowing through his fingers, hot and thick. He scrabbled with his hands, trying to press down on what felt like the wettest part of Danny’s arm even as Danny swayed sideways and went down to the floor.

Steve heard the sound of wood splintering, heard Chin’s voice, and Lou’s, and Kono’s, but it was all vague, as if coming from miles away. Then he felt strong arms close around his body and they were pulling him _back_ , pulling him _away_ from Danny. He tried to call out his partner’s name but the only thing that came out was a strangled groan. There were voices in his ear, urgent, worried, pleading. Familiar voices.He blocked them out, twisting and writhing, as he tried in vain to struggle free, straining desperately to see his partner past the frenzied chaos that had descended on the room…

 

Then the solid wall of people parted momentarily and he caught a glimpse and froze, his struggles ceasing.  Because he saw Danny’s face and it was ghostly white and his lips were blue and his open eyes were blank and dead.  A sob of horrified denial caught in his throat, thick and suffocating, his gut throbbing in tandem with the searing agony in his heart.  _"Danny..."_  He ripped free one trembling hand, reaching desperately toward his partner, but then people were in the way again and he saw only the crimson blood pooled on the floor, spattered up the walls, coating his own hands, his arms and he couldn’t _breathe_.

 

Another stabbing pain tore through his midsection and everything blurred, the grotesque patterns running together until all he could see was a vision of red, nothing but red… then nothing at all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N- Oops.  And…. now they’re running to hide, strapping on TAC vests as they go.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All good things (and indeed mediocre things) must come to an end…
> 
> And to think you all thought we were gonna kill Steve to begin with. PP loves him WAAAAAY too much to do that! But… would Swifters kill Danny? Would she? Errrrrr….

 

**Chapter 19**

 

Steve sat rigid and stock still in his wheelchair, dark glasses over his eyes, dress blues immaculate. His lean face was white and shuttered, frozen as if carved from marble, smile lines erased.

 

He stared at the gravestone before him. At the open hole, gaping and dark. At the wooden coffin, brass fittings shining in the sun. Never, _never_ at any point since he’d fallen into Hesse’s pit and first saw the stake sticking up through his own gut, did he think this shit storm would end like _this_. He shook his head slightly in disbelief, in denial.

 

Danny had saved him. Steve should have been dead, _would_ have been dead had Hesse been given even a minute more alone with him.  But Danny had shown up in the nick of time, had leapt to his aid despite his own injuries, despite the impossible odds, defending Steve's life with complete disregard for his own.  Yes, Steve was _alive_ , although he didn’t quite feel that way. His body was still healing slowly and begrudgingly after Hesse’s latest attack, but healing it was. He’d survived, thanks to a long-dead child… and his partner.  _His partner..._ He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, the flashes of nauseating crimson unnaturally bright against the deathly pallor of his brother's skin, the sickening feel of Danny's blood flowing hot and uncontrollable through his trembling fingers assaulting his mind once again, twisting his heart with vicious, breath-robbing strength.

 

Choked up, he turned his head away from the open grave and glanced to his left.  His team was there – Kono, Chin and Lou – they all flanked him, standing tall beside his wheelchair.  Only Lou’s face was visible to him from that angle and there was such a depth of sadness there, plain for all to see, that Steve had to look away again fast, eyes suddenly brimming.

 

He didn’t dare turn the other way.  Grace was standing to his right and he had a death-grip of her hand which was being returned with ferocity. She was amazing and strong beyond her years and he loved her as he would a daughter of his own. Would always love her like that.  But he knew if he glanced her way and saw the emotions he knew would be written all over her face, it would be his undoing.

****

He ran his eyes across the familiar dates on the headstone and he felt the raw tug of grief, sharp and intense. The whole thing was so unfair and so incredibly hard to comprehend. He swallowed tightly against an acrid lump in his throat, forced himself to listen to the priest’s words as they drifted through the leafy churchyard on the gentle breeze.

 

“ _He was taken from this world too soon, but he will not be forgotten. We find comfort in the knowledge he will be reunited with his lost loved ones by the Grace of God….”_

It was suddenly too much.

 

Steve raised a trembling hand to his face, clamped it hard against his mouth in an effort to stave off a public display of emotion.

 

He felt a strong hand grip his shoulder and he sucked in a grateful, shuddered breath, moving his own hand up to grasp it without hesitation, because he wasn’t alone in this. He wasn’t the only one with this intense perspective. He turned his head slightly and looked up at the familiar figure standing behind him.

 

Danny smiled a sad little smile down at him. His partner’s face- drawn, pale and lean- was a direct reflection of Steve’s own and Steve couldn’t help but feel a rush of astonishment and gratitude that they had both survived. They had been beyond lucky.  And Steve was convinced that someone had really been watching over them, keeping them safe.

 

Danny had nearly bled out after taking on Hesse. His blood pressure was virtually gone, hypovolemic shock almost taking him from them… but the doctors had been there in seconds and that was literally the only reason he had survived. It had been _that_ close. Steve hadn’t known that Danny had made it, though.  Steve had re-awoken after his own injury was repaired, groggy from the anesthetic and _convinced_ that his partner was _gone!_ And that soul-rending belief, the incalculable depth of loss he experienced at that moment – it thrust him fast and hard into the darkest recesses of despair, twisted his insides into a knot of unrivalled agony, made him feel like his heart was being ripped right out of his chest. The memory of _that_ feeling still haunted him even now, weeks later.

 

He shuddered, tightening his grip on Danny’s hand, smiling with tearful appreciation when Danny's other hand clamped down on top of his for a moment, squeezing just as hard.  He looked up at his partner, his eyes running down to Danny’s broad shoulders, his arms. The dark suit covered the damage but Steve knew every new pink scar by heart. He turned back around front and closed his eyes once more, but kept his hand over Danny’s, rubbing his thumb absently over his friend's knuckles.

 

He opened his eyes in time to see Keiran Quinn’s surviving family - the niece the little boy had never had the chance to meet and her three sons - step forwards one by one to lay flowers on the little white coffin.  


Steve watched, mesmerized. They’d been introduced already.  Mrs. Miller - Liz - was a tall slim woman in her early 40’s, elegant and pretty. Her red hair shifted in the breeze, captivating Steve’s attention for a moment because it was _just_ the same shade Keiran’s had been.

Another movement caught his eye and he couldn’t help but hold his breath as Malaki Euta, clad traditionally in brightly colored clothes, moved quietly away from his own family to place a lei alongside Keiran’s flowers. The big man reached forwards to touch the coffin and his eyes closed, his lips moving as he murmured a few silent words. He turned to Keiran’s family and bowed his head respectfully. Steve bit his lip, waiting for a reaction.

 

Mrs. Miller laid a hand on Euta’s arm and smiled briefly.   _Forgiven_.  She was absolving him of any guilt he might feel for his family’s sins.  The Samoan deflated visibly in response, tension bleeding out of his body.  Then he stepped closer to the red-haired woman, arms reaching toward her, hesitantly at first and then with almost grateful fervor at her nod of encouragement, and his large frame folded easily over her much smaller one as he pulled her into a heartfelt, soul-mending hug.

Steve blinked, the lump in his throat suddenly threatening to choke him. And Danny’s hand tightened on his shoulder because Danny _knew_ , Danny felt it too.

 

The haunting melody of ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ drifted through the tiny congregation. Steve mouthed the words, unable to find his voice, as he watched the coffin being lowered into the ground to join those of Keiran’s parents, interred in the same plot.

 

It wasn’t quite ‘home’… but it was the best they could do. Keiran’s family home had long since been demolished- this seemed like the next best thing.  Maybe the _very_ best thing.

 

Steve looked around discretely, wandering eyes hidden behind those dark glasses, skimming over the somber, mournful faces, the single rose still clutched in the woman's hand, the tender pink of the petals fluttering gently in the soft breeze.  He nodded once, strangely satisfied. The quiet little service was perfect for the shy boy who’d been lost so tragically.

 

Admittedly, the sadness he and Danny were feeling might have seemed out of proportion to some, other than those whom they’d trusted with the full story- the team and Gracie.  They weren't related to Keiran, after all, there were no ties, no familial connections. He had died more than twenty years before they were even _born_. Yet the connection that _was_ there felt greater and deeper to the two of them than anyone could ever imagine.   To those looking from the outside in, they were there to mourn the passing of a little boy who had gone out for some innocent fun yet had never seen the light of day again, and the raw impact of that tragedy was clearly understandable to all.  Everyone knew that this moment, right here, was that boy being returned to his parents, their respective ordeals finally over in the most heart-rending of ways.  But to Steve and Danny, it was so much more than that. They and they alone had felt the boy’s fear, his loneliness.  Felt it on an intimate level and were marked by it to the very depths of their souls. They knew how long he had suffered alone and how much, how _desperately_ he had longed to go home.  It was a hard thing to try to come to terms with.

 

Steve closed his eyes again, let his feelings wash over him, let Danny’s warm hand ground him, as Kieran’s remains were finally committed to the ground.

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

The ceremony was over, the mourners slowly beginning to file back out to their cars.  Steve and Danny lingered, Danny parking Steve's chair next to a green wooden bench in the dappled shade of a tree in the churchyard, thirty yards or so from Keiran’s final resting place, and sitting down beside his partner, hand reaching to grasp Steve's own for a long moment before he sat back.

 

Steve glanced over towards the parking lot in the distance where their ‘ohana were waiting patiently in the vehicles, understanding their need for a little space… and knowing they had another self-appointed task to tick off the list for Keiran. The partners were waiting to talk to Liz Miller, who had been deep in conversation with the kindly priest for the past ten minutes or so. Steve found his eyes drawn to her red hair yet again, then over to that of her sons. The boys had moved off to chase each other around the trees in the churchyard, an hour of immobility plainly too much for their youthful exuberance. Red-heads, every one of them. There could be no mistaking the family connection **.**

Steve smiled in recollection of his youthful guardian angel as he traced the movements of the youngest boy, James. He was ten, about the age Keiran had been when he died. They were so similar they could have been brothers.

 

Steve gathered himself as Liz finally finished up and spotted them, walking over to them with a little wave. He took off his sunglasses and tucked them in his pocket then smiled warmly up at her as she reached them.

 

“Thank you so much, again, Commander, Detective,” she said, raw sincerity in her voice and in her eyes.

 

Danny sighed deeply. “It was sheer luck that we found him," he objected softly, "you don’t have to thank us.”

Liz smiled sadly at them both, then looked back over towards the gravestone, where _three_ names now appeared carved together on the polished stone surface. “However this happened, it means so much. My grandparents never recovered from losing Keiran. You’ve brought him back to them.”

 

Steve cleared his throat. “It was our privilege. He’s… he _was_ … a special boy,” he choked out.

 

She nodded. “You know, we found an old photo album with pictures of Keiran in it. We’ve always been struck by the similarities between him and my James…"  She trailed off, a fond, faraway look in her eyes, then shook herself, returning her attention to the two of them.  "You’re welcome to come and see it sometime if you’d like," she offered shyly, faltering, "I mean I don’t know if that would interest you….”

 

Steve glanced at Danny, catching his slight nod. “You know," he smiled warmly at her, "I think we’d like that very much. We’ll fix something up.” The highlighted parallel tweaked Steve’s memory and he leant back in the chair to dig around in his pocket. “We have something to give James, actually, if that’s okay… it belonged to Keiran.”

 

He pulled out his hand and opened it to reveal the shining brass compass.

 

She stared at it in wonder for an instant, then called over her youngest.  The boy ran up, bright blue eyes looking at them expectantly.

 

“Hi James,” Steve began softly and then faltered, as the feeling that he was looking Keiran square in the face again struck him full force.

 

His partner jumped to his rescue yet again, always seeming to know just what to say when it came to kids. “Hey buddy!" Danny squatted down to the boy's level and pointed at the shining object in Steve’s hand.  "See this? It's a compass, it belonged to your Great-Uncle Keiran. We think he’d have liked you to have it. He used it to find his way in the forest. He liked exploring." He cocked his head the side, smiling fondly at the boy who seemed completely enraptured by the compass.  "Do you like exploring?”

 

“I do!” James nodded vigorously, an awed look crossing his face as Steve handed over the treasured object.

 

“You look after that, yeah?” Steve's hand lingered minutely over the boy's, his gaze soft.

 

Mouth open in mute wonder, James flicked the compass open, ran his fingers reverently over the inscription inside. “I- I will," he promised in a breathless murmur.  He looked back up and smiled brightly at them, all warmth and sunshine and life.  "Thank you!” he offered sincerely and then he was off, running to show his new prized possession to his brothers.

 

Liz watched him go, a gentle smile playing on her lips. “Thank you again," she whispered, heartfelt, turning once more toward them.  "For everything. And you’ll always be welcome in our home.” She held out her hand, and they each shook it in turns, nodding their goodbyes as she walked away.

 

Steve gazed after her, watching as she caught up to her sons, herding them gently but determinedly toward the car.  The boy who may as well have been Keiran’s double stopped short suddenly, as if realizing that he was being observed.  He turned back and smiled widely, waving excitedly before he ran ahead to catch up with his family.

 

Steve waved back at him with a grin, then turned to look at Danny. The partners stared at each other for a moment then Danny averted his gaze and sighed, sinking forwards and dropping his elbows onto his knees. He hung his head for a moment before looking back up towards the grave. Now that pretty much everyone had left, the gravediggers moved to begin the process of backfilling the hole, the regular thumping of dirt against the wood of the coffin marking time like the ticking of the clock.

 

Steve stared at his partner’s profile for a few moments. Danny was worrying about something, he could tell. The resigned tension in his body, the slight furrows in his brow, the downturned corners of his mouth, they all gave him away. Steve blew out a breath. “Okay, spill. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

 

Danny glanced up at Steve, doubt in his eyes. “Okay… Okay, this’ll sound crazy, but..." he trailed off, snorting in a self-derisory way, "nothing really new here, is it – me sounding crazy…"

 

Steve watched him silently, brow furrowing in concern.

 

Danny shook his head, growing serious once more.  "You don’t think we’re trapping him alone in the dark again do you?" he asked, voice faltering,  the pale blue eyes crinkled with worry.  "I mean, maybe he was… freed or whatever… in the bunker when the pit collapsed and his skeleton was disturbed? Maybe if he’s buried again… maybe we’re just doing it to him all over again.”

 

Steve blinked, then looked over at the grave, a slight curl of panic unfurling in his gut because that hadn’t occurred to him for a second. What if Danny was right?  What if this was the entirely wrong thing to do?  He thought over the sequence of events as he understood it, tried to make sense of it for the hundredth time. Keiran had appeared to him when he was at death's door, had begged him to hang on because the boy didn't want to be left alone again, because he wanted to go home… but Danny had seen him way before that. Steve shook his head. “You know, I don’t think so," he disagreed, voice firm with sudden conviction. "I mean you saw him _before_ the pit collapsed, right? _Before_ the skull was uncovered. I know you were unconscious, dreaming, whatever… but it was him, right? And you thought you heard footsteps when you were still tied up before I even got there?”

 

Danny considered him for a moment, before turning his head back towards Keiran’s grave, silently counting out the shovelfuls of dirt rapidly dropping down onto their savior’s resting place.  He shrugged.  “Well yeah, but it’s kinda hard to know which memories to trust, you know?”

 

 “I know.” Steve nodded pensively, squinting as he watched his partner. “You know what was confusing me?”

 

“What?” Danny replied, gaze fixed resolutely away from him.

 

Steve pinched his lips at his friend's stubborn avoidance, let out a small, frustrated breath.  “Why us?" he wondered, the softly voiced inquiry meant for Danny's ears only.  "I mean, any number of people must have been in that bunker through the years before us.  Why did he choose to appear to _us_?”

 

Danny stiffened, turning to meet his eye this time. “I’d asked myself the same question," he admitted hoarsely. "Surely if he could… do the things he could do… he should have come out of hiding decades earlier? So, yeah, _why_ us?”

 

Steve gave him a half-smile. “Well I have a theory….”

 

Danny's eyebrows rose at that, face crinkling with incredulity.  “Oh, he has a theory, this outta be good,” he said with a smirk, but there was no heat in his words.

 

Steve nodded in the affirmative, his smile growing even wider. “I do! I do have a theory.” Then the smile dropped away, a somber expression darkening his face. “So… I guess maybe we were…. er…. you know… a little scared when we were in the bunker. Kinda like he was. Right?”

 

Danny's eyebrows rose higher still. “A little _scared_?” He sounded like he was choking on the word.

 

Steve shrugged, suddenly a bit unsure, then nodded once, holding his ground. “Sure. Just a little.”

Danny shook his head slowly, then huffed out a sound that hung partway between a sob and a laughter. “Buddy, I was so scared I nearly wet my pants! Not that I had pants on, but if I had....”

 

Steve dropped his gaze for a moment, a rueful smile twisting his lips. “Yeah, gotcha- if you had they would have been nearly wet.” He swallowed tightly against the memory of seeing Danny in that bunker, blindfolded, beaten, rope around his neck. His hands curled into fists almost despite himself, and he dug the nails in deep, fighting to steady the sudden trembling of his fingers.  “Anyway," he murmured, voice hoarse with tension, "My theory is… he wasn’t scared of _us_ because we were scared just like he was. So I guess he got brave enough to show himself." He raised his head, risking a glance Danny's way, but his partner was already looking away from him once more and Steve sighed, voice dropping to nearly inaudible whisper.  "Is that crazy?”

 

Danny stared at the grave for a full minute, deep in thought, the silence punctuated by the impact of the shovelfuls of soil. “No…" he acknowledged finally, his gaze riveted to the mournful scene, "No, that actually makes a surprising amount of sense.”

 

Steve felt himself relax minutely at Danny's affirmation, emboldened now to share the rest.  “I can't feel him anymore," he confessed, nodding toward the grave.  "Haven't... just since we came _here_. And I don’t... I don't think it’s because he’s trapped again. I think it’s because he’s not scared any more. Because he’s got what he needed. He... I think he’s with his family now.”

 

Danny nodded slowly, his bottom lip curling out. “I like that," he murmured and blinked suspiciously, raising his right hand to scratch at his eyebrow in a thinly veiled attempt to cover his eyes.  "And I guess I feel that too. I’m just….”

 

“You wish you knew for sure,” Steve guessed and sighed deeply. “Me too, partner.  Me too.”

 

They lapsed back into silence, watching the grave steadily fill up with soil, lost in their own thoughts.

 

Steve broke it first. “You know, if it wasn’t for Hesse’s insane plan Keiran might never have been found.”

 

Danny dipped his head sharply, snorting in agreement. “I know. I know, buddy. I’m never gonna say I’m glad it happened. I mean, you got skewered, I ended up like some extra in a slasher movie. My head’s a mess, your head’s a mess. The pair of us…" he chuffed brokenly, dropping his head to stare at the ground before him.  "I guess we’re as bad as each other. ”

 

Steve reached out hesitantly, clasped Danny's hunched shoulder, squeezing it briefly before letting his hand fall away. “Agreed," he whispered, closing his eyes momentarily.  "But because we went through what we went through, _this_ happened. So in a way it makes what we went through... it makes it worth it, I think. I’m glad there’s an ending for his story even if it was a pretty shitty chapter for us.”

 

Danny nodded, then looked Steve's way, opening his mouth to reply, but stopped suddenly, an odd hesitant look flickering across his face.  “And what about us?”

 

Steve frowned, not quite following. “You know the story. We’re signed off work for a few more weeks. We’ll finish our courses of physio, we’ll get my core strength back so I can ditch this stupid thing,” he slapped the arm of the wheelchair, pulling an expression of disgust, “and get your hands and arms bending right too so you can do more than just chauffeur me about all day. We need you to be able to shoot straight after all. Well, straight as you ever could," he amended with a teasing smirk, hoping to get a bit of a rise out of his friend.  Danny ignored the bait, however, and Steve's frown darkened, heart lurching with growing concern. Lips pressed together, he studied his partner for a long moment in silent worry, then plunged on, cautious. "So yeah, things should pretty much get back to normal after that.  We might have to put in some time in group therapy, maybe some counseling to straighten out our heads. Rest of the time, you and me, kicking back, shooting the breeze, having a few beers, hanging with your kids. It’s all good.”

 

Danny worried his lip between his teeth, clearly nervous about something.  His eyes met Steve's briefly and then he dropped his gaze once more, turning back toward the grave. “Easy as that, huh?”

 

Steve snorted then nodded, firm and sure. “Okay, granted, maybe not quite as easy as that. But you and me? We’ll get there. We’ll be fine. It’ll just take a bit of time.”

 

Danny shook his head slowly, lips pinched white. “That's not what I…. I meant - are _we_ good? I mean I know we talkedin the bunker, but…. we were kind of under duress at the time. Heck, I don’t even know if you remember any of it. You were… not good.” He shuddered, suddenly reaching out for Steve’s hand again, grasping it with almost fearful desperation. “I just don’t wanna let things slide back to the way they were before, you know? And we never really, you know, worked out what had gone wrong.”

 

 _Ah..._ Steve nodded silently to himself as the object of Danny's worry finally became clear, then squeezed his partner's hand tight. “We’re good,” he asserted hotly, voice leaving no room for objections.

 

Danny glanced his way again, his eyebrows shooting up. “Oh right. I see. Just like that, huh? Problems solved." He shook his head, incredulous, his free hand rising to punctuate the words that spilled forth nervously in response to Steve's simple, heartfelt declaration."So... so what...Does that mean you’re gonna keep letting me drive my own car once the physio lets you out of that contraption? I find that _incredibly_ hard to… What the hell are you doing?!….”

 

Steve was grinning broadly, pushing himself up out of the wheelchair. Before the bewildered blond had a chance to recover, he pulled Danny to his feet by the hand still gripped within his own, then released it abruptly in favor of wrapping both arms around his partner.  He embraced him, clinging to him as tightly as he dared, cutting off his rant mid-flow. “Shut up,” he whispered in his ear. “Just... shut up.  I nearly fucking lost you.  And I remember what you said in the bunker, I do.  And I’m agreeing with you again, buddy…. If I ever lost _you_ it would kill _me_ too. So _believe_ me, whatever other crap goes on between us… we’re good.”

 

He felt Danny smile against his shoulder. “You know you’re a sap, right, Steven?” the blond man murmured, nothing but warm affection in his tone, and Steve laughed wetly in response as he felt his brother wrap his own arms around him just as firmly, returning the gesture fiercely, fingers curling tight in the material of Steve's shirt.

 

They stood like that for a long, long moment, basking in the simple, genuine warmth of each other's embrace, neither man willing to let go.  Until Steve's legs wobbled slightly, his healing body unaccustomed to the strain of standing, and he was forced to latch on to Danny even harder to keep himself from falling.  Danny's grip on him shifted instantly, one arm sliding down to brace him at the waist, the other grasping at his elbow. 

 

"Sit  back down, you goof," he chided gently, and Steve smiled in happy compliance, allowing his partner to push him gently back down into the wheelchair.

 

The blond detective’s hand lingered on his shoulder for a moment once he was settled, the connection steady and solid as ever. “Well, buddy, I should get you back to the car. The guys will be starting to worry.” He looked over towards the parking lot and grimaced. “Actually they’re kinda staring. I wonder why.”

 

Steve gazed in the direction of their extended family and snorted, amused. “Probably think we're freaking out here, or falling out or..." he trailed off, eyebrows wiggling suggestively, "or _making_ out, who knows."  He laughed, ducking a pretend slap his friend aimed at the back of his head.  "Okay, push on, partner.” He snuck a mischievous look in Danny’s direction as the wheelchair started to move. “Hey, I’ll even let you drive!”

The indignation in Danny’s tone was absolute music to his ears. “You’ll _let_ me drive? I suppose you’re _letting_ me push your wheelchair out of the goodness of your heart too, are you? You know you’re even a control freak when you’re incapacitated!”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “ _I’m_ incapacitated? I’m fine! I don’t even need this thing, the physio guys made me bring it. You know that. No standing for longer than 15 minutes for some freaking reason. But _you_ … Hesse just about bled you dry! You nearly _died_ , Danny! You’re meant to be taking it easy, buddy! You should be in one of these freaking things too!”

 

“Don’t use my arms to walk, Steven,” the blond objected in a sing-song voice. “And I was in a _hospital_ when it happened. If you’re gonna get stabbed it’s got to be the safest way to do it, right?”

 

Steve huffed in exasperation, shook his head. “You know what? I think I _will_ drive.”

 

“I think I’ll hitch your wheelchair onto the back of my car and _tow_ you.”

 

That did it.  Steve grinned broadly, turning his head up to mock glare at his partner.  "I'd like to see you try."

 

Danny did slap him this time, gently, right upside the head, then went back to pushing the wheelchair as if nothing had happened.  Steve smiled softly to himself, glancing once more back towards the grave. The men had finished their job and were packing up their tools. For a brief instant, Steve thought he saw a familiar shadow among the trees near Keiran’s gravestone. He held up his hand, pointing towards it.

 

Danny stopped and turned.

 

Just for a moment, the shortest moment, a figure appeared in the distance, a figure that looked exactly like young James. He smiled and raised his hand to wave to them. Then he was gone.

 

“The Millers left already, didn’t they.”

 

Danny spoke the awed words out loud the same instant Steve realized who it was they’d just seen.

“Well, I guess we know for sure now, Danno,” he murmured, his voice wavering with a rush of emotions – relief, gratitude, joy tinged with a heavy dose of sorrow...

 

And he knew Danny felt the same when, instead of a reply, his partner just chuffed out a shaky laugh which came very, very close to being a sob.

 

Steve reached back up, grasping at the hand that met his halfway and sighed deeply, suddenly utterly content. “Bye Keiran.”

 

H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50 ~ H50

 

_Keiran Quinn smiled softly as he watched the men who had helped him move slowly away. They were no longer scared… and they weren’t alone. They had each other now, and Keiran nodded approvingly at the solid, blinding glow of the connection between them. He heard long-missed voices call to him and turned towards the light that had been flickering invitingly behind him. “Coming Dad, coming Mom,” he whispered._

 

**THE END**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KQ ticklist… the very last thing… Bromance not romance (tick) and we can add on our own little gift to her- the ongoing theme of the color red.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it KQ, and indeed anyone else for that matter. Thanks for the fantastic support, really hope you got something out of it, Steve whumpers and Danny whumpers, one and all.
> 
> PP and Swifters signing out.
> 
> (“Four MONTHS….Nearly four months of our lives disappeared on this, PP,” Swifters can be heard to mutter as they stomp off into the sunset together. “Un-fecking believable! No new Tribute, no update to Death Imitating Art. Or that Zorro thing with the sweaty torsos and the horses.”
> 
> “I know… so when do we start the next one?” replies PP as they disappear out of sight. “I’ve got these three new stories partly written in my head and I think they’d be perfect for us. I thought if I send you the outlines and you start drafting them out…?”
> 
> And the sound of a shotgun resonates across the landscape, echoing for long, long seconds before silence reigns once more.)


End file.
